Remote area hit by new aftershocks

Six aftershocks jolted a remote southern Indian archipelago where villagers were fighting today to survive without water or food after Asia’s devastating tsunami.

The 5.2-5.9 magnitude tremors last night and early today came as authorities tried to reach the survivors who are desperate for humanitarian aid. There were no reports of casualties from the aftershocks.

India has so far denied international aid groups access to enter most of the island territory of Andaman and Nicobar, the last tsunami blind spot where casualties are not known but feared to be in the thousands.

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

India raised its official death toll today to 8,942 – a jump of more than 1,100. Most of the deaths, 7,397, have occurred in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. However, that does not include a complete count in the island territories.

An island official said yesterday that 712 bodies had been buried or cremated there, and at least 3,754 people were missing amid the debris of crumbled homes, downed trees and mounds of dead animals on several islands.

That lowered a government estimate on Thursday of 10,000 missing in the hundreds of islands scattered over some 4,350 miles in the Bay of Bengal. The Red Cross said earlier up to 30,000 could be missing.

Homeless and stunned victims of Sunday’s disaster 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 eager to learn if their friends and families were safe.

Indian authorities have traditionally barred foreigners from most of the islands – partly for security reasons because of an Indian air force base in Car Nicobar and also to protect a dwindling group of indigenous people. 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; the remaining area is protected for wood cultivation.

A few international relief agencies have begun working in Port Blair – the territory’s capital, where permission is not needed to enter – but are unable to go deeper into the archipelago’s 500 islands.

“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.

Many villagers alleged relief was reaching the islands but was hoarded by local officials.

Relief operations on the remote archipelago – which starts approximately 500 kilometres (300 miles) northwest 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.

“We would like to be invited to join the relief effort, and to be part of any helicopter or boat trip to the area,” an official with the Paris-based Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said at a news conference.

International humanitarian group Oxfam also requested entry. But Lt. Gov. Ram Kapse, administrator of the federally governed territory, said no decision had been made. He said four Indian volunteer groups have been allowed to travel to the islands.