Reuters Posted online: Thursday, January 06, 2005 at 1149 hours IST
Port Blair, January 6: It was once home to a venerated tribal people who were renowned carpenters, but today the Indian island of Chawra is deserted, left only to pigs and dogs howling in the wake of last week's tsunami.
Most of the island's 1,300 people survived but have been evacuated by an Indian navy ship and are not sure if they will ever return to their ancestral homeland in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
"We were terrified, everyone said the island was sinking," said Reginald, who was helping his niece in the rescue ship's sick bay after it anchored in Port Blair, the capital of the island chain. "I don't know if I can go back ever."
Forty people were killed when giant waves lashed tiny Chawra, 2.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide, on Dec. 26 following an undersea earthquake whose epicentre was located to the south of the Nicobar islands. Fourteen people are listed as missing.
All survivors had to be evacuated to an emergency shelter on a larger island to prevent an outbreak of disease, said the captain of the Indian ship involved in the rescue effort.
Video images of the devastated Chawra island shot by the ship's officers showed animal carcasses on a dirty beach, uprooted coconut trees and coffins from a flooded cemetery floating in the water.
Bodies of victims were piled up in one corner of the island. The survivors, many half-clad, were huddled together in the middle on clumps of crushed trees, seeking shelter from rain and a roaring sea.
Survivors lived off coconuts and bananas and had their first cooked meal five days after the disaster, brought to the shore by the rescue team in small boats.
LIVING NEXT TO CORPSES The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, some 750 miles off India's east coast, took the brunt of last month's tsunami which has killed about 150,000 people across south and southeast Asia.
The tidal waves have left nearly 16,000 people dead or feared dead in India. More than 6,000 people are missing and presumed dead on the Andaman and Nicobar islands although only 900 bodies have been found.
Indian authorities said two islands besides Chawra in the 500-mile long chain of mostly uninhabited tropical paradise were completely evacuated to help survivors get faster relief.
But there has been some disquiet among tribal groups unhappy at being uprooted from their ancestral home.
The people of Chawra were traditionally looked up to by other Nicobarese and thought to have magical powers. They were known as excellent carpenters and artisans, famous for making good canoes and earthen pots.
"They were living next to corpses, they would have all fallen sick," Deepak Dhar, captain of INS Magar, told Reuters.
Some of the survivors were so weak that sailors put them in gunny bags and lifted them over the gangway to the ship, he said.
"We had to leave the dogs and pigs behind, they were howling when we left," Dhar said. "Our first priority was human beings. The animals would have gotten sea sick and half of them would have died anyway."
One man, who had a parrot on his shoulder, was allowed on board the ship with his companion.
