Church groups try to ascertain destruction on remote Indian island

Published: 2004-12-29

NEW DELHI, India (CNS) -- Church groups in India said Dec. 29 they still were trying to ascertain the extent of destruction that the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunamis caused in a remote Indian Ocean island territory. Although various agencies reported 3,000 people dead in India's Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, government and church officials feared the figure for those islands would rise sharply once rescue and relief operators reached all of the territory's 39 inhabited islands. The Indian government was including only 90 people from the islands in its count of nearly 7,000 confirmed deaths nationwide Dec. 29. A police official reported 8,000 people missing and possibly dead in the islands. Government officials working on relief operations said damage from the disasters hampered food and medicine delivery, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency based in Thailand. Telecommunication and electricity links with the islands were cut when the disasters occurred. The 576 islands forming the territory were hit by the magnitude 9 undersea earthquake about 100 miles off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island and by the tsunamis that followed.

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