Reuters Posted online: Friday, January 07, 2005 at 1614 hours IST Updated: Friday, January 07, 2005 at 1619 hours IST
PORT BLAIR, January 7: Five years ago, the tiny island of Katchal ushered in the dawn of a hopeful new millennium for India. Today, this chunk of the remote Andaman and Nicobar chain is bathed only in despair.
Last month's killer tsunami left nearly 6,000 people dead or missing on the chain of remote islands, with hundreds stranded in jungles, braving hissing pythons and wild pigs.
"The smell of the bodies never leaves you," said S. Ratimurugan, a school teacher who reached a relief camp in Port Blair, the Andaman capital, with his wife and one-year-old child after a week on the devastated island of Katchal.
"People are getting desperate. How long can you live in jungles with snakes and pythons? Children cry all the time."
Hundreds of people are still camping out near a helipad or in thick mangrove forests amid the stench of decomposing bodies on the worst-hit of the three-dozen inhabited islands in the tropical paradise, hoping to be airlifted or taken away by boat.
More than half of Katchal's 8,512 people have been missing since the giant waves slammed into its coast on Dec. 26, destroying its jetty and white beaches.
Katchal, known for its kaleidoscopic corals as well as its perfect waters for snorkelling and scuba diving, is home to the Nicobarese, the largest tribal group in the archipelago, as well as mainland Indians and a small group of Tamil settlers from Sri Lanka brought in to work on a rubber plantation.
Dazed survivors said living conditions were worsening on the island which has been largely inaccessible since the tsunami struck, although military helicopters have begun dropping food and water.
S.K. Ghosh, an electricity worker, said he and his wife fought their way into a packed rescue boat, saying she needed medical attention. They were dropped off at Hut Bay island, where they waded ashore in crocodile-infested waters.
"I have seen several crocodiles, big ones. I am sure they are looking for bodies," said a tired Ghosh, who moved around in the jungles for more than 10 days after his house was swept away.
"We were very scared of being bitten by the snakes. Who would have looked after us?"
Criticism has mounted that the administration woke up too late to the devastation on the outlying island after the tsunami that killed more than 15,000 people in India.
Indian authorities said they were building more helipads for faster rescue and rehabilitation in Katchal, which lies closer than the Indian mainland to the epicentre of the undersea quake off Indonesia's Sumatra that triggered the tsunami.
On Thursday, a military helicopter rescued 17 tribal people trapped in the West Bay area of Katchal swamped by sea water where they had been living on coconuts and bananas for 11 days.
"We are doing the best we can," said Lieutenent General B.S. Thakur, head of the defence forces command in Andaman and Nicobar, which has taken over relief operations in the federally-administered islands.
"The logistics here are very different than on the mainland."
Thakur said helicopters had to be routed through Myanmar and Bangladesh as it was too far to fly direct to the islands, which are some 1,200 km (750 miles) from mainland India.
