Tempers flare at slow pace of rescue

TEMPERS flared over the sluggish pace of aid efforts in India’s remote and restricted Andamans and Nicobars yesterday as hundreds of bodies lay scattered around the islands a week after the tsunami struck.

Local authorities said a local government officer was manhandled by people angry at not getting relief supplies in Campbell Bay, the main town in the southernmost island of Great Nicobar, where widespread devastation has been reported.

Police had to send reinforcements.

“The situation in Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar is very grim,” said a senior island administration official in Port Blair, the region’s capital city.

The top army general in the region who is coordinating relief efforts said 400 villagers still remained stranded on a hilltop in the island on the southernmost tip of the archipelago, where they fled to escape the waves.

“I admit that some areas south of Campbell Bay are still marooned, but we have now reached all those who are marooned by air dropping food and other supplies and more than 200 people have been evacuated by helicopters,” said Lieutenant General BS Thakur.

The chain of more than 500 islands, most of them uninhabited, lies 800 miles east off the Indian mainland, and have a couple of military airbases located on them. Also home to hundreds of stone age tribespeople, many of the islands are off limits to foreigners and mainland Indians alike.

Mistrust of outsiders by the military and local bureaucracy has compounded the practical difficulties of the aid effort.