India estimates tsunami damage at over 1.6 billion dollars

New Delhi (dpa) - The Indian government on Friday estimated reconstruction costs in four Indian states devastated by December 26 tsunamis to be around 70 billion rupees (1.6 billion dollars).

The report was based on an assessment by federal government teams in the southeastern coastal regions of the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Pondicherry.

The figure does not include costs for the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal. Many of the islands in the Nicobar group were totally wiped out and would require complete rebuilding, officials said.

Meanwhile, India's nationwide death toll stood at 9,995 on Friday, with 5,689 people still missing. Of these, 5,592 were untraced in the Andamans archipelago alone, a statement from the federal home ministry said.

Distributing relief supplies to the Nicobar islands remained difficult because of damaged harbours and jetties. Aid was being dropped by helicopters and only six of the 38 inhabited islands had been evacuated, officials said.

Rising water levels triggered by the massive Indian Ocean earthquake were compounding the difficulties faced by tsunami survivors and relief crews.

Oceanographers warned the water levels would rise until next week, because the land at the edge of the sea dropped nine inches after the earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the Telegraph newspaper reported.

Water continued to rise alarmingly in the Andamans' capital Port Blair, with the city's low-lying streets flooded every night at high tide.

The massive undersea earthquake was caused by a buildup of pressure beneath the India plate and Burma microplate. The plates move against one another at an average rate of about six centimetres a year, but this is not always smooth.

Scientists said the earthquake's impact was so tremendous that the Andamans could have tilted or even shifted.

Navy officials said they were afraid of running aground off the northern shores of the islands because the land level there had risen. In the south, the water level had gone up by at least 1.5 metres and a new landmass had been created on one island, the Telegraph said. dpa ar ch