Asutralian Breaking News
200 bodies wash up on beachFrom correspondents in Port Blair, IndiaJanuary 1, 2005
ABOUT 200 bodies were found today on a beach in India's tsunami-ravaged Andamans and Nicobar archipelago, a police official said, raising the official death toll in the island chain to 912."It could be more," Andamans police chief Samsher Deol told a media conference late today, referring to the numbers of bodies found on Car Nicobar island.
Relief workers said it appeared the bodies had been washed up on the beach of Car Nicobar, which bore some of the brunt of Sunday's giant waves that killed at least 125,000 people across Asia.
Andamans chief secretary V V Bhatt, the archipelago's senior bureaucrat, said another 712 bodies discovered after the tsunami had now been either cremated or buried.
A total of 3754 people were still listed as missing while 7,853 people had been evacuated from devastated areas, he said.
The Andaman and Nicobar isles are close to the epicentre of the Indonesian earthquake that triggered the waves and most buildings in Port Blair are showing cracks or have been substantially damaged by the quake.
Police had earlier said at least 4000 perished in Sunday's disaster while residents estimate that the real death toll in the islands is closer to 10,000.
The home ministry in New Delhi said that on mainland southern India about 7763 people were confirmed dead, according to the latest toll. Agence France-Presse
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