Unawatuna (Sri Lanka), Dec. 28 (Reuters): Sri Lankans of all castes and creeds pulled together today to try to salvage what remains of their lives, following a series of tsunami waves that devastated coastlines across Asia.

Buddhist and Hindu, Muslim and Christian worked side-by-side in towns and villages that line the tourist beaches of the south.

They were united with one mission ? bury the dead, heal the injured and rebuild.

While most tourists scrambled to escape the carnage, taking helicopter flights and sea-planes organised by their embassies, many foreigners who have made their homes in Sri Lanka weighed in to help.

The area was a prime spot on the hippie circuit of the late 60s and 70s, and many westerners ?dropped out? there, attracted by the laid-back lifestyle, golden beaches and clear waters of the usually tranquil Indian Ocean.

The ocean showed all its fury on Sunday when an undersea earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a series of waves that flattened almost every home and business along the Sri Lankan coast. More than 50,928 are now known to have died across Asia in the quake and ensuing tsunami, 18,706 in Sri Lanka alone.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies from wreckage of shattered beach cottages and shops that take up almost every metre of the coastline.

Undertakers and coffin makers ? considered pariahs in caste-conscious Sri Lanka ? became the heroes of the hour, braving the overwhelming stench of bloated, fly-blown bodies to pull the dead from the debris.

?All of this lumber was meant for building furniture,? said Eroll de Silva outside his Mugalle timber mill, a short distance from the beach at Unawatana. ?Now it will make coffins?.

There was little immediate sign of the organised relief and reconstruction effort the government is trying to mobilise. Instead, ordinary Sri Lankans from further inland were pouring to the coast to offer assistance.

?I came from around 30 km away,? said Ahmed Hussain, a Muslim who works in an upcountry tea factory. ?I have to help. We all have to help.?

Local Buddhist charities organised trucks and buses to drive up the coast on whatever roads were passable, delivering packages of cooked rice, bread and biscuits to tens of thousands of homeless. They lined the streets, arms outstretched as the trucks, most carrying huge white banners inscribed with Buddhist prayers, drove by slowly.

Catholic priests and nuns in pristine white robes picked their way through the muddy streets, offering consolation to weeping relatives of those who died.