Tsunami quake shifted seven Indian islands: Geologists

NEW DELHI, Wednesday (AFP) Three popular beach resorts were among seven islands on India's Andamans archipelago that shifted southwestwards when a giant earthquake hit on December 26, geologists said Wednesday.

The state-run Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS) found six inhabited islands and one that boasts a volcano moved "a few metres" after the undersea quake that measured 9.3 on the Richter Scale triggered deadly tsunamis.

"Preliminary estimates from the GPS (global positioning satellite systems) survey around Andaman and Nicobar suggest the islands have shifted southwestward by a few metres," CESS seismologist C. P. Rajendran told reporters.

"Also some parts of the Andaman and Nicobar islands subsided and some got uplifted," the study said, adding that eastern districts of the Andamanese capital Port Blair sank deeper into the sea after the tremors shook the 550 black volcanic rock islands.

In contrast, the western coast of the North Sentinel Island, home to Stone Age tribal aborigines, rose by half a metre. More than 2,000 poeple died and 5,640 others are still listed as missing on the archipelago.

The tsunamis killed more than 16,000 people in India and more than 273,000 around the Indian Ocean region, from Indonesia to East Africa.