Sri Lanka army - Tamil Tiger Defence Breached By SriLanka Army
Aerial video showed thousands of people filing out of the combat zone. Tens of thousands remain in the area, which has seen heavy fighting for months.
The government says more than 49,000 have now left, more than 2,000 of them by sea on fishing boats.
They are on their way to government-run transit camps which Western media have no access to, it adds.
The pro-rebel TamilNet website said several hundred civilians were feared killed and injured after troops advanced into the zone.
Tamil protesters held angry demonstrations in Paris and London on Monday against the army operations.
About 180 people were arrested in Paris as the protest there turned violent.
'Nightmare'
Sri Lanka's defence ministry said on Tuesday troops were advancing into what was previously designated by the government as a safe zone.
It said another 3,000 civilians left the conflict zone on Tuesday.
Each side accuses the other of killing civilians in the long running civil conflict.
Foreign reporters are not allowed into the combat zone, making it impossible to independently verify the claims.
The Tigers are restricted to a 20 sq km (12.4 sq miles) coastal patch.
Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, said it was not known how many civilians remained there but that the UN had been working off a figure of some 150,000 to 200,000 people in recent months.
The government is not giving the ICRC access to the landward side of the zone.
So it can only evacuate people by sea, with two or three ships per week each carrying 400 or 500 of the sickest, oldest and most badly wounded people.
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