Andamans missing 'presumed dead'

People evacuated from the Andamans arrive in Madras (Photo: Senthil Kumar)

The police chief in the Andaman islands says most of the thousands of people missing there after Sunday's tsunami are probably dead.

Several hundred bodies have been recovered from the hundreds of islands that make up archipelago.

The authorities say many more could be lying washed up in island forests.

More than 3,000 people have been evacuated. Many were taken to the Indian mainland. Others are in the Andamans' capital, Port Blair.

'Not encouraging'

India's secretary for border management, AK Rastogi, said in Delhi on Friday that the number of missing had been scaled down from 5,900 but still stood at 3,000.

ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR About 400 islands, 30-40 inhabited Islands are peaks of submerged mountain range Indian owned, area of 8,249 sq km Population around 370,000, about 100,000 in Port Blair Number of tribes, including Jarawas, Onges and Shompens

Police Inspector-General Shamsher Bahadur Deol told the BBC that some of these people may still be in island jungles.

He said others were still turning up but in smaller and smaller numbers.

"The signs are not encouraging at all," he said.

Mr Deol said it may never be known accurately how many people perished. Only 712 are confirmed dead.

The authorities say the low body count could be because many bodies are lying in the forests that are hard to get to because of stagnant waters and sludge.

They also say that tsunamis usually pull bodies down into the bottom of the ocean.

The head of rescue operations says evacuations are now being scaled down.

The heaviest destruction is in the Nicobar islands, the southern part of the archipelago.

"The major part of the evacuation has been completed [there]," Lieutenant General BS Thakur told the AFP news agency.

'Jetties destroyed'

Although rescuers say they have reached all of the hundreds of islands in the chain, access remains a problem.

An Indian navy ship taking supplies to the islands

"There is a problem of jetties which have been destroyed and the roads... washed away so we are using smaller boats and using local canoes for emergency supplies and evacuation," Lt Gen Thakur said.

Mr Rastogi in Delhi also gave updated information on the fate of a number of aboriginal tribes on the islands.

Most of the Andamanese, Onges, Jarawas and Sentinelese were safe, he said, but the 3,000 missing come from the 28,000-strong Nicobarese.

The greatest fears are for the 400-strong Shompens in Great Nicobar. The search for them is still on.

There has still been no news of four international scientists and 16 staff stationed at Indira Point, south of Great Nicobar and about 140km from Indonesia.

It is the southernmost point in India and is named after former premier Indira Gandhi.

On Thursday the coastguard said the crew of a helicopter flew over it and said it was submerged.