Search and rescue operations for those missing in the tsunami disaster in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands will be called off in a week as chances of any survivors by then would be nil, the Indo-Asian News Service quoted a senior navy officer as saying Wednesday.
"We will give it another week before calling it off," Vice Admiral Raman Puri, chief of the integrated defense staff who is heading the military's relief operations, told a joint news conference with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran.
"We have still not given up hope even in the three islands in South Nicobar that we have evacuated," he said.
"Search parties on foot were cutting through dense forests in the islands in search of survivors," Puri said, noting it took a whole day to cover about two km.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands were the second worst hit in the Dec. 26 disaster after southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with 900 officially confirmed dead and a staggering 5,681 missing. The death toll in Tamil Nadu was 7,793.
The government has confirmed nearly 9,700 deaths but other estimates have said the toll could be as high as 13,000.
(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2005)
