NEW DELHI, Jan. 2 -- The Indian government on Sunday again put aside private aid groups' urgent requests to help tsunami survivors on the devastated Andaman and Nicobar Islands, saying that a decision would be made in five days.
During a meeting in Port Blair, the archipelago's administrative capital, aid workers from Indian and foreign private groups pressed Indian officials for access to the remote islands, where relief operations are being handled by the Indian government and military. R. Kapse, lieutenant governor of the islands, told them no decision would be made on Sunday.
Tribal members displaced by the tsunami prepare food at a makeshift camp in a jungle on the island of Car Nicobar.
(Manish Swarup -- AP)
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"This is an unfortunate delay," said Shaheen Nilofer, a representative of Oxfam India, the country's chapter of the British-based humanitarian aid organization. "What is worrying is that the Andaman and Nicobar situation requires urgent attention and action on war footing.
"We want to accelerate and expand the humanitarian assistance to the distressed by working alongside the government," Nilofer said.
Located about 900 miles east of the Indian mainland, the islands are viewed by the government as being important for monitoring China and shipping lanes. Officials are reluctant to allow foreign groups access to many of the islands' protected reserves for indigenous tribes. Parts of the islands, home to 350,000 people, are off-limits to foreigners, and even Indians need special travel permits to visit.
The full extent of death and property damage in the islands remains unknown because a large number of communities have not been reached by outsiders. A Home Ministry report released on Sunday said that about 812 people were confirmed dead in Andaman and Nicobar and that another 5,400 people remain missing.
The Home Ministry put India's official death toll at 9,451, with another 5,421 people missing and feared dead, the Associated Press reported.
A 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck in the seas near the Andaman and Nicobar islands at 9:06 p.m. on Sunday, but caused no damage or casualties, an official at New Delhi's Meteorology Department told the Associated Press. The area has been jolted by 94 aftershocks since the devastating 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Dec. 26 off Indonesia's coast.
Last week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declined foreign countries' offers of humanitarian assistance, saying, "We feel we can cope up with the situation on our own, and we will take their help if needed."
India had promised aid to neighboring countries. But on Saturday, Singh asked for donations to boost the government's $232 million relief package, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
International aid groups are working in the tsunami-battered state of Tamil Nadu, where about 7,700 people have died. But requests by groups such as Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services and Doctors Without Borders to go deep into the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have not been approved.
"Right now, the entire operation in the Andaman and Nicobar is managed by the government and the military," said Nilofer, of Oxfam. "But it is not just a matter of delivering food. The survivors need sustained care and trauma counseling in rebuilding their lives. A lot of us have an expertise in disaster relief and reconstruction. Let us not deny the people's right to receive."
India's government has approved more than $22 million for relief and reconstruction on the islands.
Admiral Raman Puri of India's Defense Ministry said that these were the "biggest peacetime disaster relief operations" that the Indian military has ever carried out. He said three navy survey ships have been converted into floating medical facilities. Navy vessels and aircraft have delivered about 550 tons of relief supplies, including food and medicine.
A spokesman in Singh's office said the government and the military command will handle the "initial relief work" on Andaman and Nicobar and "outsiders" will be allowed in later.
"A lot of these external groups, whether Indian or foreign, are not familiar with the topography of the islands," said Sanjay Baru, the spokesman.
"The military command that is based there is best equipped to deal with initial rescue and relief. When outsiders come in, they often need a lot of hand-holding, showing them the map, helping them settle in. Precious resources get diverted just taking care of them. So we feel they can come at a later stage when reconstruction is required."
Sameer Acharya, who heads a group called Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology in Port Blair and who attended Sunday's meeting, said that "given the sensitive strategic importance of these islands, the government feels that everybody and anybody should not have access to the area."
But Acharya insisted nongovernmental organizations must "be allowed to go in and work in health, water and rehabilitation issues. As it stands now, the government relief efforts have reached all the islands, but not all the habitations."
Some disaster specialists said foreign assistance did not make a critical difference. "It usually takes two to three days for the best international teams to come in, and by then it is too late for rescue," said Aromar Revi, of the New Delhi-based consulting group Taru.
