Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Fresh tremor hits India after tidal waves kill nearly 2,300

CUDDALORE, India (AP) - A fresh tremor hit Indian islands far off the country's eastern coast Monday, a day after massive waves triggered by an undersea quake killed at least 2,284 people in India.

Unofficial reports by private Aaj Tak television channel put the overall death toll in India as high as 3,300.

The temblor at daybreak Monday in the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal had an initial magnitude of 6.0, said Jaya Chandran of the New Delhi-based Indian Meteorology Department.

Details on casualties and damage from the latest quake were not immediately known, the official said.

India was trying to recover Monday from the massive waves unleashed the previous day by the world's biggest quake in 40 years, a 9.0-magnitude quake off Indonesia.

The government sent food and generators to coastal areas devastated by tidal waves, searched for survivors and told fisherman not to go to sea for two more days.

Official tallies of deaths in Indian states totaled 2,284, with the waves killing 1,705 people in Tamil Nadu state, 300 people in Bay of Bengal islands, 116 in Kerala state 102 people in the federal territory of Pondicherry, and 61 in Andhra Pradesh state.

Tamil Nadu was the worst affected, with waves sweeping away boats, homes and vehicles, said the state's top elected official, Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa.

"It's an extraordinary calamity of such colossal proportions that the damage has been unprecedented,'' she said in a statement.

"It all seems to have happened in the space of 20 minutes. A massive tidal wave of extreme ferocity ... smashed everything in sight to smithereens,'' she said.

She said the "extremely high death toll in the space of a few minutes'' shows clearly that it is one of the worst calamities to hit the country.

Tamil Nadu's beaches resembled open-air mortuaries as fishermen's bodies washed ashore, and retreating waters left behind others killed inland. At least 200 people died in Tamil Nadu's capital, Madras, alone.

Seawater flooded the streets of Cuddalore town, flipping over dozens of cars and leaving some vehicles perched atop road dividers.

Many cars were seen floating in the streets like boats.

"My heart goes out in sympathy to all those families who have lost their dear ones due to this tragedy,'' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a televised statement.

Residents of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh state spoke of 12-foot (four-meter) walls of water slamming into the shore.

"I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flying on the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if made of paper,'' said P. Ramanamurthy, 40, who lives in Andhra Pradesh's Kakinada town.

The Indian air force was sent out to drop food packets, medicines and diesel generating sets in the affected areas, Cabinet Secretary B. K. Chaturvedi told reporters. - AP

Earlier reports

CUDDALORE, India (AP) - The children laughed and ran past the colorful festoons and paintings on the walls as they played hide-and-seek. In a corner, old men and women wailed with swollen eyes.

Hours after a deadly tidal wave struck this tiny southern Indian town Sunday, dozens of parents sitting in the hall knew something their children did not: Families, homes, boats, and toys - everything they had - had been wiped out in a few minutes.

Now survivors from fishing villages were brought here to this sprawling, decorated hall normally used for wedding receptions, as relief volunteers struggled to rush food to the area.

Those who were lucky got bed sheets to spread on the floor; others slept on the concrete.

The now morbid town of Cuddalore is located in the worst-hit Tamil Nadu state, where more than 1,700 people died Sunday.

Across southern India some 2,300 people died.

The death toll stood at more than 11,600 across devastated South and Southeast Asia, after the largest earthquake in 40 years unleashed massive tsunamis.

Most of the dead in Cuddalore were poor people.

Ananda Selvi, 30, waited for her husband as the waves came in. Sudhakar Selvi went fishing earlier in the day.

"I didn't know whether to look toward the sea for my husband, or to run away to save myself,'' she said.

"Then I ran and ran and ran, and now here I am, without any word of him.''

Outside the marriage hall, fire engine sirens whined at regular intervals.

At the site where columns of water slammed in, broken boats lay on the shore near smashed huts with only frail bamboo frames jutting out of the ground.

"We ran in all directions,'' said Tamilarasi, a 47-year-old woman with eyes red and swollen from crying for hours. She said she lost five relatives, including two grandsons, and a fishing boat.

"When the wave receded, some people were sucked in,'' she said.

"Others ran away. Some people climbed on coconut trees. I got hold of two children who were near me, and started running. When we were on dry ground, we realised some of us were missing.''

Andhra Pradesh state to the north, tidal waves as high as coconut trees washed away hundreds of small fishing boats.

"It was a pleasant bright sunny morning and we were looking forward to a very good day,'' said 45-year-old fisherman Giri Prasad.

"But it turned out to be the most frightening day of my life.''

On Manginapudi beach in Machlipatnam town, bodies of women and children lay strewn on the sand.

They were part of a group of Hindu devotees who had come to the sea to bathe on the occasion of the auspicious full moon day.

Survivors did all they could to save the stricken.

Some pushed hard on their stomachs to expel the water; others just picked up the lifeless bodies and ran, trying to get someplace where the victims could be saved. - AP

For Another perspective from The Statesman, a partner of Asia News Network, click here

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