The markets were off the day's lows, as the Sensex recovered marginally by 39 points to touch 18,102, still down 226 points, while the Nifty shed 73 points at 5,421.
The bourses continued to remain tense after massive tsunamis measuring 7 meters hit the north-eastern coast of Japan, after a terrific 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck the island nation 150 kms off the Japanese coast.
Japan's government agency warned tsunmais reaching other countries like Russia, Indonesia, China, Taiwan and the US, amongst others, and the Bank of Japan set up a dister control team, and assured it would do whatever is required to ensure financial market stability.
On the Sensex gainers list, ONGC was on top up 2.4% at Rs 282, followed by Tata Power at Rs 1,201 up 1% and FMCG major HUL at Rs 278 up 1%.
Losers on the benchmark were Reliance Communications at Rs 96 down 4%, BHEL at Rs 1,977 down 3.5% and TCS at Rs 1,074 down 3%.
On the sectoral chart, Oil & Gas and FMCG were flat, with a negative bias, at 9,634 and 3,483 respectively.
Losers amongst the energy stocks were Cairn India at Rs 338 down 2%, Reliance Industries at Rs 978 down 1% and Indian Oil Corporation at Rs 305 down 0.3%.
Metal stocks kept losing sheen, as the index dropped 2% at 15,368, while the Power index also languished at the bottom of the sectoral chart at 2,555 down 1.5% and the Auto index at 8,724 declined 1.4%.
JSW Steel remained the top loser on the meatl index down a little more than 4% at Rs 898, while Tata Steel shed 3% at Rs 579 and Sterlite Industries at Rs 161 down 2.5%.