The official death toll in the Dec.26 tsunami disaster has reached 9,675 and the number of missing rose to 6,107, according to a status report issued on Wednesday morning by the Indian Home Ministry.
At least 900 people have been confirmed dead and 6,010 people missing to date in India's worst tsunami-devastated Andaman and Nicobar Islands which spread over 700 kilometers in the Bay of Bengal.
The total numbers of the dead and missing in the remote archipelago and the southern states hit by the massive quake and killer tidal waves on Dec. 26 in the Indian Ocean are likely to goup after details from the Nicobar Islands are received, said the report.
Altogether 104 aftershocks of intensities between 5.0 to 7.0 on the Richter scale have been reported in the past 10 days of which 10 are in the last 24 hours so far, the report said without mentioning any possible damage or casualties.
The Indian Ministry of Health is monitoring the situation in all tsunami-affected areas round the clock. Medical teams and medicines have been dispatched there and 10 trauma specialists have joined them. No report of outbreak of epidemics has been received so far.
The focus is on relief, rescue and rehabilitation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Disaster management teams have been constituted and people evacuated to eight of the 36 inhabited islands by the local administration where the relief efforts are now concentrated. There are no reports of any law and order problem in the context of relief operations in any of the islands.
According to the statistics provided by the Home Ministry, 1,189 tons of food items, 368 tons of drinking water, 83 tons of medicines and 9,975 tents have been delivered to the affected people so far.
It was reported that the Indian central government has completed the first stage of relief and rescue operations in the past 10 days. The focus now shifts to restoration of infrastructure along the battered coastline and particularly in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2005)
