"We were trying to run ahead of the water. When we turned around, all the houses were gone," said Matenga, an indigenous Nicobarese.
"Within five minutes, everything was gone. It was Sunday morning and we were planning to go to church -- and suddenly there was no church."
But there were few tears or hysterics among the thousands of survivors being ferried by boat and helicopter to Port Blair.
"The Nicobarese are very calm people. They have taken this with a tremendous sense of maturity," Deputy Inspector-General A.N. Basudev Rao said.
The 30,000 Nicobarese are the largest group among the tribal peoples that account for about one-tenth of the islands' population.
Some of the smaller indigenous groups, numbering only a few hundred each and mostly dwindling, maintain little contact with outsiders. They disappear into the forest when strangers approach and authorities hope that is the case now as they search for survivors.
"They might be hiding in forests and taking shelter in places where we haven't reached yet," Rao said.
Helicopters flying from 10 ships flew over the islands looking for signs of life, or mounds of dead.
Rao said finding and disposing of bodies on the islands was a daunting task.
"A huge number of trees have fallen. There is a lot of slush," he said.
Nearly all the jetties on the islands were smashed by the waves, so search parties are using small wooden and rubber boats to land on beaches.
"The rescue parties are approaching inch by inch," Rao said. "There is also a lot of stench. From the stench, they are trying to follow the direction to the bodies."
Six Indian air force AN-32 cargo planes made dozens of flights from Port Blair to the airbase on Car Nicobar, bringing back 80 to 90 villagers on each run.
About 580 survivors from the island of Hud Bay arrived by ship before dawn on Thursday.
The waves were so fierce that most of those who got aboard were men, who had to swim from shore.
They said more than 800 people were dead or missing on the island.
"We just managed to save our lives," said Dana Amma, 60. "All our houses, our cattle, everything is gone. We don't know what to do."
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