NAGAPPATTINAM, India — A week ago, A. Dharmaraj was a carefree teenager, fishing alongside his father as his younger brothers and sisters played in the sand.

But with his parents now dead, swept out to sea in last week's tsunami, the 15-year-old has been forced to grow up very fast. He became the head of his family overnight and now worries about keeping all the children together.

The tsunami destroyed the family in the coastal town of Nagappattinam, the worst-hit town in India, in southern Tamil Nadu state.

"I will never leave my sister and two brothers. I will always take care of them," said Dharmaraj, perched on the staircase of a relief camp.

While thousands of children have been orphaned since the tsunami ravaged the shorelines of 11 Asian and African nations, the traditional extended families of South Asia are giving relief but with a heavy heart. Many orphans will be taken in by aunts and uncles, godparents and neighbors.

On Saturday, Dharmaraj's little sister, A. Mahadevi, 13, brothers A. Ramakrishnan, 10, and A. Jayaraman, 9, stared blankly at the concrete ceiling as Dharmaraj went for food.

After much prodding, Mahadevi started talking about her experiences during the tsunami.

"We were all at home. The children were making a racket outside," she said.

Mahadevi's two younger sisters, ages 5 and 3, were playing in the sand just outside their thatched-roof hut. Their 35-year-old father, Arumugham, was repairing his fishing nets and their mother, Anjamma, had gone to sell the day's catch.

"Suddenly somebody shouted, 'Water is coming, water is coming!' Before we realized what was happening, the waves had engulfed our home," Dharmaraj said.

He said his father initially escaped the tsunami, but then turned back to save a woman relative and the two got sucked into the sea. The two younger sisters were battered by the waves and died. The other siblings waded through waist-deep water to safety.

The children later discovered that their mother was also swept to her death.

At least 43 children in Nagappattinam have lost both their parents, said Shantha Sheela Nair, a government official.

"This is only the preliminary number. The final number will obviously be much more," she said. More than 16,000 children are being sheltered in the relief camps in the district.

The government has appealed to voluntary organizations to arrange for adoptions.

But Dharmaraj insisted no one would take away his brothers and sister. "An uncle of ours has offered to help us," he said. "We don't need to be adopted."

Dharmaraj said he will return to fishing, as he did with his father since he was a child, but his brothers want nothing to do with the life of a fisherman and the sea.

"I don't know anything else. In fact, I don't want anything else," he said. "I just want to go back to the sea."