PM assures assistance to tidal waves hit, as Bodies line Indian beaches

MADRAS, 26 dec Wailing relatives are gathering around dozens of bodies on beaches surrounded by half-submerged cars and wrecked boats in southern India after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in distant Indonesia killed about 2,000 people.

Television footage showed bodies, including young girls, being tossed into lorries in Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu state.

A government official said at least 1,625 people had been killed in Tamil Nadu alone.

The tsunami that crashed into India and Sri Lanka and swamped tourist islands in Thailand and the Maldives was triggered by the world’s fifth-largest quake in a century, measuring 8.9 magnitude.

The government’s Crisis Management Group said it was the first time tsunamis, or giant tidal waves, had hit the Indian coast.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured states hit by the devastating tsunamis of all support and assistance for relief and rehabilitation efforts and appealed to people to remain calm.

“I am deeply distressed by the large-scale devastation that has been wrought. My heartfelt sympathies are with the families of the bereaved and with all those affected in our country,” he said.

Expressing “deep shock” at the tragedy, Manmohan Singh described the loss of lives as “extensive” and said the damage to public and private properties and disruption of communications was “severe”.

“I have learnt with the deepest sorrow about the tragic of loss of lives and destruction brought about by the earthquake and associate tidal waves in the Andaman Nicobar islands, in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa and Pondicherry. My heart goes out to the families who have lost their families. I have been in touch with the respective governments and our fullest support and cooperation is with them,” Singh said in the televised address from New Delhi.

Singh, who has been monitoring the situation, said Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi met members of the Disaster Management Group and “he and his colleagues are coordinating all the efforts that need to be put in to meet with the tragedy.”

Singh said he had instructed the defense and home ministers to take necessary measures to provide adequate relief to those people affected by the disaster.

The Armed Forces and the Central Paramilitary Forces have also been mobilized for rescue and relief operations, Singh said.

Some 700 fishermen were reported missing in Prakasam district alone and Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy announced the payment of Rs.100,000 as compensation to the kin of the dead.

The US-based National Earthquake Information Centre reported as many as 11 aftershocks measuring between 5.8 and 7.3 on the Richter scale were registered in the Andamans till Sunday evening.