Tsunami survivors are starving

Without water or food for six days after a tsunami, villagers on a remote southern archipelago are starving and desperate for relief to reach them, survivors and officials said today.

“There is nothing to eat there. There is no water. In a couple of days, people will start dying of hunger,” said Anup Ghatak, a utilities contractor from Campbell Bay island, as he was being evacuated to Port Blair, capital of the Indian island territory of Andaman and Nicobar.

Homeless and stunned victims poured into eight relief camps in Port Blair with harrowing tales of death and destruction. Walking long distances through dense forests to get to the nearest airfield, they were grateful they had survived but struggled to find out if their friends and families were safe.

India has officially reported 7,736 dead in the earthquake-tsunami disaster but that does not include a complete count in the island territories, where officials estimate as many as 10,000 people could be buried under mud and debris.

Authorities believe rescuers will discover thousands of bodies in the debris of crumbled homes, downed trees and mounds of dead animals in several islands across the 2,700 square mile expanse.

Many of the villagers are alleging that relief is reaching the islands but is being hoarded by local officials who did not distribute the food.

“There is starvation. People haven’t had food or water for at least five days. There are carcasses. There will be an epidemic,” Manoranjan Bhakta, Andaman’s MP said after being surrounded on a roadside by people demanding food and water for stranded family members.

Relief operations in the remote islands – just north-west of the quake’s epicentre – have been limited to Indian officials and local volunteers who have struggled to deliver tons of rations, clothes, bed sheets, oil, and other items, hampered by lack of transportation to the remote islands.

The government has so far denied permission to international aid groups trying to gain access to the remote islands.

Entry to foreigners is prohibited on most of the hundreds of islands in the Bay of Bengal, and even Indians need special permits to travel there.

Some 40% of the densely forested area is designated as a tribal reserve where indigenous people live and the remaining portion is a protected area for wood cultivation.

“In the southern parts, people have suffered a lot. There is water scarcity everywhere. We fear an epidemic,” said Tarak Banerjee, director of the disaster preparedness unit at the Voluntary Health Association of India.

Sharath Babu, head of a group of amateur radio operators, said colleagues on the worst-affected Car Nicobar island had reported that “relief is not reaching the people. People are hungry.”

Drinking water shortages have been reported, but local people were making do by eating coconut kernels and drinking coconut water, said Deputy Inspector-General AN Basudev Rao.