Police paid tribute today to an officer who helped save hundreds of people on his remote island in India during the tsunami disaster, then was swept away while trying to help one last person, an old woman who asked him to retrieve her handbag.

Rescuers followed the stench of death to find rotting bodies in jungles on India’s remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, where thousands are believed to have died, while people fled their homes today amid warnings of possible new tsunamis following fresh quakes.