On January 4, the government announced that 901 people died and 6,010 were missing in the tsunami that hit Andaman and Nicobar islands on December 26. That cannot even be a half-truth. Samir Acharya, secretary of the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology, said that according to four Nicobarese tribal chiefs, around 10,000 people, a third of the island's population, had died in Car Nicobar. "Though Car Nicobar is small, it is very densely populated and most habitations dot the coastline," said Acharya. Doctors from the district hospital there said that Kimos and Kakna villages were wiped out. "There were heaps of bodies in Malacca and Perka villages," said one doctor. Official statistics are not the only problem on the islands. Logistics is equally frustrating. About 13,000 military personnel are working almost round-the-clock