Tribespeople Wandered Isle Nearly 40 Days
Nine tribespeople who survived the Dec. 26 tsunami spent 38 days wandering through flattened villages on a remote Indian island, eating boar and coconuts, before police found them Wednesday.
Five men, two women and two girls were discovered in a forest on Campbell Bay by police searching for people still missing after the disaster, which killed more than 150,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
The oldest survivor was a 65-year-old man, the youngest an 11-year-old girl, Inspector Shaukat Hussain said.
The tsunami wiped out many villages on the island, which is part of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
The nine survivors, members of the Nicobarese tribe, were found in the jungle interior.
“We were in a combing operation,” Hussain said. “They were sitting in the forest when we saw them, and they just ran to us, without saying anything. They seemed happy, yes, but there was no hugging and tears and shouting in joy and all that.”
Two of the survivors were hospitalized for dehydration and the others were taken to a relief camp. All lived in a village on Campbell Bay’s west coast.
“They seemed weak but OK. They said they had eaten coconuts, boars and wild shoots. They hunted to stay alive,” Hussain said.
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