MEADVILLE — Gerard Francis, a psychiatrist at Meadville Medical Center, can't describe his relief at hearing his father's voice on the phone.

His 71-year-old father, Leo Francis, lives about a mile and a half from the eastern shore of Sri Lanka and witnessed firsthand the devastation of Sunday's tsunami that killed more than 121,000 people in southern Asia and Africa.

While the deadly waves fell short of his father's door, Francis said his worries aren't over.

They're just beginning.

Sri Lanka is a deeply divided nation — one that only two years ago ended 20 years of war.

Even then, Francis said, "it's been an uneasy peace" between the majority Sinhalese and the Tamils, who make up about one-fifth of the population.

It's against that backdrop that Francis, a Tamil, wonders if money, food and medicine will flow in adequate amounts to the Tamil people, who have scant representation in the government.

Frequent reviews of news reports do nothing to ease his concerns.

Although the vast majority of the destruction was in the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, those areas have been all but ignored in government and media reports, he said.

Francis, who ran afoul of the Sri Lankan government when he tried to videotape human-rights violations, said he has little faith that an adequate share of the aid will be directed to the hardest-hit portion of a country that counts more than 25,000 dead.

That represents far more than a slight to his friends and family back home, Francis said.

It could represent a death sentence.

Francis, who worked for a time for the Red Cross, said people in Sri Lanka and other regions hit by the tsunami need food, safe drinking water, medical supplies and sanitation — and they need them soon.

"I know what can happen," he said. "It's disease that will kill people, more than the tsunami ever did."

As a medical doctor, Francis believes help needs to come quickly, before hunger sets in and disease takes hold.

There have been accounts in the International Herald Tribune and in the BBC that the long-warring factions of Sri Lanka have been drawn together in tragedy and that supplies are flowing where they're needed.

Francis counts himself as a skeptic.

"It won't be adequate," he said. "They might do it for propaganda. So far they haven't done anything that is substantial."

Francis, meanwhile, is urging anyone who will listen to send donations to organizations that will provide care to those most in need. He suggests the International Medical Health Organization or the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization.

At home for Christmas vacation, the doctor's 9-year-old son, Andre, is busy making posters and working on plans for a fund-raising effort in his school. Andre hopes to raise money to send nutritional supplement drinks back to the country he visited in late 2003 and early 2004.

For now, gruesome video images of home and the mental picture painted by his father on the telephone are never far from Francis' mind.

"He saw total devastation," Francis said of his father, a retired civil servant. "Bodies were piled up on one another, buildings were totally demolished."

Francis plans to send money, but he hopes he can do more. He said he's already asked the hospital for a leave so he can return home and provide medical care.

As one of only two psychiatrists at Meadville Medical Center, he's hopeful but understands it may be difficult for his employer to spare him.

Although they've lost telephone contact, Francis said he believes his father is safe. During 2003's visit, he helped him build up a substantial supply of food.

Thousands of miles away in his comfortable home in the suburbs, Francis scans the Internet for photos of the destruction, knowing the same cannot be said for thousands of others.

"I know what goes on," he said. "I know people are dying. I'm hoping to help."

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