Tsunami death toll 9,451: Govt

5,511 missing, relief operations hampered

The official death toll in tsunami disaster has gone up to 9,451 in four states and a Union Territory with the fate of another 5,511 still not known even as the relief and rehabilitation operations continued in the areas which have experienced 94 aftershocks since December 26.

According to the latest status report released by the home ministry, Tamil Nadu accounted for largest number of human casualty where 7,793 people lost their lives after the tsunami hit the state a week ago.

However, no person was reported missing from Tamil Nadu now and home ministry officials claimed this as a final number of casualties in this southern state.

This was followed by Andaman and Nicobar island where the death toll officially was 812 with another 5,421 still missing. As many as 16 relief camps were operating in the island, the report said, adding out of the missing, 4657 were from Katchal island.

The death toll in Andhra Pradesh was 106 with fate of another seven people still now known, the report said, adding that all the 65 relief camps set up along the coastal belt in the state had been shut as people had gone back to resume their normal life.

The casualty figure stood at 166 in Kerala where two people were still missing, while in Pondicherry it was 574 dead with another 81 missing.

The report said while the relief operations was continuing in these areas, 94 aftershocks were experienced in the region.

In India, where 13,000 have died, officials said another 5,400 people were missing across the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands. Aid workers said the toll could be much higher because they had been unable to reach the interior of many islands. Rescue workers are using small rubber and wooden boats to reach islands where roads are impassable.

Relatives and friends flying to Asia in hope of finding loved ones scoured gruesome photographs of corpses on bulletin boards. More than 7,800 foreigners are missing across the region, most of them in Thailand's beach resorts. "Please tell your friends not to come," a tourist policeman urged relatives by loudspeaker at Phuket town hall rescue centre.

"The bodies are no longer identifiable."

But forensic teams, in surgical gowns, face masks, goggles and boots, persevered with the task of trying to put names to bloated, rotting bodies. Amidst the heartache are tales of survival and reunion.

Ten foreign tourists from Britain, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland were found alive on tiny Weh island off Aceh, which had been popular with surfers and divers.

In another sign of animals' "sixth sense" for natural disasters, Thais said agitated elephants felt the 9.0-magnitude quake and sensed the tsunamis coming ""wailing and running inland, saving the lives of a dozen tourists on their backs.