Great Heart loses heart in Nicobar Islands

CAR NICOBAR - Standing in a relief camp made of bamboo, straw and plastic sheets in a remote Indian island, Great Heart says he does not have time to celebrate his good fortune at not being swallowed by last month's tsunami.

Heart, who belongs to the Nicobarese tribe, is too busy dealing with the trauma of not knowing the fate of 36 relatives who were swept by the waves that smashed into Car Nicobar, one of the worst hit in the Andaman and Nicobar chain.

"I am losing hope that they will be found," said Heart, one of hundreds of Nicobarese who live in relief camps set up by the army with the help of local officials. "After all, the sea waves reached as high as coconut trees."

The 24-year-old engineer says his missing relatives include grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces -- that's apart from six other members of his family who have died. Among the dead are his brother and sister-in-law, part of a large joint family, common to the Nicobarese tribespeople who live in the southern islands close to Indonesia. "The sea took away so much of my family. So much. I can't even think of going near the beach now though I used to swim earlier," Heart told Reuters in a relief camp called Kakana.

The indigenous Nicobarese are the biggest tribal group in the Andamans, a cluster of more than 550 islands of which only about three dozen are inhabited. The Nicobarese, who number more than 26,000, suffered the worst casualties with officials saying at least 3,000 of the over 6,000 dead or presumed dead in the island chain are from that tribal group alone.

In Car Nicobar relief camps dot roads where the army has cleared all roads and slush with the help of excavators and bulldozers. Relief was slow to reach the remote chain, which lies close to the epicentre of the undersea quake that triggered the tsunami.

But more than 10 days after the tsunami, relief has started to reach thousands of survivors who the army has reached by slashing through thick jungles. Some patrols are using dogs to track survivors in the dense vegetation.

"Our soldiers are scouring the jungles. There is always hope for survivors," Brigadier James Mayandy Devadoss told reporters at an airbase that was operational again after being submerged by the tsunami.

But for Heart, there is little hope. "Since the tsunami, I feel bad all the time."