About 30,000 to 50,000 people in Somalia are in need of immediate assistance after the Horn of Africa country was hit hard by tidal waves at the weekend, a UN aid body said Wednesday.

"Affected population in need of assistance is estimated at around 4000 families or some 30,000 people (maximum affected expected not to exceed 50,000), although it is hard to confirm theprecise number of casualties and people affected because the area is remote and settlements or villages are widely dispersed along the coast," the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said in a statement.

"The numbers might increase as we may get more information fromthe field. Since the tidal waves hit, access has become very difficult," the statement said.

The WFP plans to distribute a total of some 255,000 kg of rice,beans and vegetable oil to a total of around 15,000 people in Puntland, one of the worst affected areas in northeast Somalia, Leo van der Velden, WFP's deputy country director to Somalia, saidin the statement.

He added a series of relief supply will be sent to the worst affected areas in Somalia in the next few days.

On Tuesday, the WFP sent out its first relief package of 31,000kg of food to some parts of the affected areas in Somalia.

The tidal waves struck the Somali coast on Sunday as the effectof a series of strong undersea Sumatra earthquakes hit the east African coast.

The earthquake, measuring at 8.7 on the Richter Scale, was registered Sunday, west of the island of Sumatra, triggering tsunamis, or tidal waves, in south and southeast Asia.

At least 80,000 people in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Maldives, Thailand and Malaysia have been killed in the disaster.

Source: Xinhua