Relatives pray for thousands still missing

INDIANS scattered flower petals at sea and sacrificed chickens yesterday to pray for the safe return of those carried away in a tsunami as aftershocks hit some areas.

Groups gathered on beaches in southern India as dawn broke to light incense and pray for thousands of missing.

But while some held on to fading hope, others broke down as they discovered loved ones among the loads of dead ferried to hastily erected open-air morgues and authorities gouged out mass graves to bury bodies already rotting in the tropical heat.

Moderate aftershocks hit parts of India a day after one of Asia’s worst tsunamis in decades, triggered by an earthquake off Indonesia, killed more than 7,100 in India.

Police say at least 3,000 have died and a similar number are missing in the low-lying Andaman and Nicobar islands close to the quake’s epicentre off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

“Death came from the sea,” said Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry on India’s east coast. “The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?”

At a hospital in the town of Thazhanguda, a group of women already consoling the mother of one victim broke down when the body of the daughter of one of them was brought in.

“Anasuya, Anasuya. Talk to me, talk to me, it’s your mother,” one wailed, hugging the sand- and weed-covered body.

The father, too, tried to speak, but broke down.

Officials in Tamil Nadu reported more deaths on Monday, bringing the toll there to at least 3,400. Rescue operations in some of the worst-hit areas had only just begun.

About three-quarters of the dead were women and children, the families of poor fishermen, too weak to run or swim through the swirling waters.

“The men ran or held on to trees and walls for dear life,” said M Rajani, a fisherman. “The women and children were no match for the sea.”

Neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state said about 1,300 people were missing, including many fishermen and 200 Hindu pilgrims who had gone for a ritual bath on the beach.

More than 350 people were killed in Andhra Pradesh and southwestern Kerala state. The government announced a survivors fund and a 100,000-rupee (€2,000) payment to relatives of the dead. Tens of thousands fled their homes.

Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaran said contact had been made with one of the worst hit of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Car Nicobar. The death toll would be “very large”, he said.