Aftershocks hit Indian death islands

A string of Indian islands were rattled by aftershocks today while emergency aid was rushed to survivors of the tsunami waves that killed at least 4,300 people along the nation’s south-eastern coast.

In addition to the confirmed dead, another 3,000 people are feared to have been killed by Sunday’s killer waves on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which were shaken by seven aftershocks of 4.4 to 5.5 magnitude overnight.

“The death toll is estimated around 3,000 dead and another 3,000 missing in the islands,” said AN Basudev Rao, the deputy inspector-general of police, in Port Blair. “We have so far recovered only 200 bodies.”

The Home Ministry in New Delhi said the confirmed death toll in India stood at 4,371 on Tuesday, including 3,618 in the worst hit state of Tamil Nadu.

The national toll would go up dramatically if the Andaman and Nicobar deaths are confirmed, most of which are believed to have occurred on Car Nicobar island.

The Andaman and Nicobar region is made up of more than 500 islands in the Bay of Bengal, but about 30 are inhabited. Located 915 miles east of the Indian mainland, the islands were the site of a notorious penal colony used to imprison Indian independence leaders during British colonial times.

Rao said that all the inhabited islands were hit by Sunday’s tsunamis.

“We have been unable to reach two of them with a population of up to 1,000 each because of rough sea,” Rao said.

The Hindustan Times newspaper reported Tuesday that the missing included 200 air force personnel stationed there.

In the worst hit district of Nagappattinam in Tamil Nadu state, some bodies still rotted in the mud left behind by Sunday’s tidal waves.