A string of Indian islands were rattled yesterday by aftershocks following the massive quake on the weekend, while emergency aid was rushed to survivors of the tsunami waves that killed at least 4,300 people along the nation's southeastern coast.
In addition to the confirmed dead, another 3,000 people are feared to have been killed by Sunday's killer waves on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which were shaken by seven aftershocks of 4.4 to 5.5 magnitude overnight.
PHOTO: AFP
"The death toll is estimated around 3,000 dead and another 3,000 missing in the islands," A.N. Basudev Rao, the deputy inspector-general of police in Port Blair said when contacted by telephone. "We have so far recovered only 200 bodies."
A statement by the Home Ministry in New Delhi said the confirmed death toll in India stood at 4,371 yesterday, including 3,618 in the worst-hit state of Tamil Nadu. The national toll would go up dramatically if the Andaman and Nicobar deaths are confirmed, most of which are believed to have occurred on Car Nicobar island.
The Andaman and Nicobar region is made up of more than 500 islands, but about 30 are inhabited. Located about 1,500km east of the Indian mainland, the islands were the site of a notorious penal colony used to imprison Indian independence leaders during British colonial times.
Rao said that all the inhabited islands were hit by Sunday's tsunamis.
"We have been unable to reach two of them with a population of up to 1,000 each because of rough sea," Rao said. The Hindustan Times newspaper reported yesterday that the missing included 200 air force personnel stationed there.
All the villages and the road along Car Nicobar's coast were washed away, the region's police chief S.B. Deol said in an interview with New Delhi Television network.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other