Date:30/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/30/stories/2004123009030100.htm

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Manmohan touring affected areas

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, DEC. 29. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, today left here for Thiruvananthapuram to survey the tsunami-hit coastal areas, even as the Centre said the death and destruction were being treated as a national calamity.

The toll in the disaster that affected 8.77 lakh people was declared to be over 7,000 with over 5,000 people missing.

After visiting the "control room" at the Home Ministry this evening, Dr. Singh told presspersons that the Centre was not considering imposing any cess "as of now" to fund the relief work and refuted reports that New Delhi had refused international aid. The Centre was confident that the situation could be met with internal resources and there was no need to ask for assistance.

While Dr. Singh said this was not the time to discuss whether there was any delay in responding to the crisis, the Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, said that while there could be criticism about visits by Ministers in the affected areas, he asserted these were necessary to ascertain the extent of the damagein order to respond to the challenge.

After reviewing the relief and rescue operations going on non-stop since Sunday, Dr. Singh expressed confidence that maximum efforts were being made to provide succour to the affected.

GoM meet

Ahead of his visit to the southern States, the Prime Minister, chaired a meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) coordinating the relief operations, and later spent time at the control room at North Block.

Dr. Singh said he would tour Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh and would go to Andaman and Nicobar Islands later. He said the Government was making the best possible efforts to restore the infrastructure and rehabilitate the people.

The Centre today revised the death toll and put it at 7001. Tamil Nadu suffered the worst; 6,100 lives were lost there. The official death toll in Pondicherry stood at 506, 167 in Kerala, 124 in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and 104 in Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 5,000 people were reported missing, according to the latest figures released by the Union Home Ministry this evening. The figure was expected to shoot up as details about the extent of destruction were coming in from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

At a press conference on the GoM, the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, said the tsunami affected 2,260 km of the coastline besides the entire Nicobar Islands. The tidal waves on the mainland reached a height of 3 metres to 10 metres and penetrated 300 metres to 3 km into the mainland.