India: Wailing relatives gathered around dozens of bodies on beaches in southern India yesterday after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in distant Indonesia killed up to 3,000 people.
Television showed bodies floating in turbulent, muddy seas off Madras, capital of worst-hit Tamil Nadu state, and people carrying bodies in hessian sacks to hospitals while dozens more were tossed into lorries.
Officials said at least 1,705 people died in Tamil Nadu and about 300 in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Kerala states.
Another 1,000 were feared dead in the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands just off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, near the quake's epicentre.
Vast swathes of countryside were submerged in one of India's worst natural disasters in living memory as heavy waves and winds lashed the coastline, leaving thousands homeless and hundreds of fishermen missing.
"Never in my life have I had such an experience. The whole area has been turned into a cemetery," said Chellappa, a 55-year-old fishermen.
Hours after the tsunami, loud wailing from women pierced the night at a fishermen's village in Madras. Injured and bleeding goats roamed among wrecked coconut palms.
A heavy stench of fish, kerosene and dead bodies pervaded the ruins of the village. Household debris including pots and pans, fishing nets, broken televisions and slippers littered the ground.
"I was standing by the seashore when I noticed the sea level rising, but I was not concerned then because I only thought it was an unusually high tide," said Chellappa.
"Then I heard an eerie sound that I have never heard before. It was a high-pitched sound, followed by a deafening roar which seemed to be getting louder. I told everyone to run for their life and I started sprinting inland."
Hundreds of homeless people thronged pavements in Madras, a city of 10 million people, while others fled to higher ground. At least 100 people were killed in the city alone.
"I was taking a bath and before I realised what was happening, seawater had seeped into the bathroom," said another fisherman, Pazhani. "I was having breakfast with my three children when water started coming into my home. We had to leave everything and run to safety. We don't know what has happened to our TV, radio, utensils," wailed his wife, Lakshmi.
Half-submerged cars and wrecked boats lay on the famed 12-km Marina Beach in Madras.
"My mother had gone to the seaside to buy fish when the wave came and lifted her," said a dazed fisherman's wife, standing on a pavement with hundreds of refugees. "It took an hour for us to go and recover her body. Thank God my husband had not gone to sea as he was unwell."
In Andhra Pradesh, about 400 fishermen were missing and 200 Hindu devotees who had gone to the beach for a holy dip in the morning were feared dead. Federal Interior Minister Shivraj Patil told local television that at least 200 people had died in Andhra Pradesh.
A state official in Kerala, said at least 92 people had died there. The armed forces have been called in to help in rescue operations at home and in neighbouring Sri Lanka.
"The situation is very grim," the Press Trust of India quoted police inspector-general S.B. Deol saying in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. He told Reuters 300 people were confirmed dead, another 700 feared dead.
He said there had been no contacts with the southernmost islands closest to Indonesia since the tsunami.
Almost 500 tourists were stranded on a rock in the sea off India's southernmost tip, witnesses said. Tourists take a ferry to the Vivekananda Rock memorial to see the sunrise, but services were halted soon after the tourists landed because of choppy seas. - (Reuters)