PORT BLAIR, India, Jan 15 (AFP) - The capital of India's Andaman Islands, Port Blair, has shifted over a metre (yard) following a huge earthquake that sent tsunamis smashing into Asian shores, the country's chief mapmaker said Saturday.
The 556-island archipelago lies near the epicentre of the earthquake off Indonesia that triggered the monster waves on December 26.
The surveyor-general, Prithvish Nag, said he had no information yet about the movement of other islands in the remote archipelago, known as a tropical paradise for its pristine beaches and emerald seas.
But he said the shift was expected to require new maps to be drawn up.
"Our initial studies carried out in Port Blair region show the land mass has shifted 1.2 metres (yards) towards the southeastern side but we're still waiting for the final reports," he told AFP.
"This shift will definitely affect ship and aircraft operations in and around these islands and surely new mapping will be required for this region," he told AFP.
The Andaman straits is one of the world's most important shipping lanes.
Nag added the Port Blair land mass had fallen 25 centimeters and water levels surrounding the island had risen 1.5 meters (yards). But he said there should be "no panic and the sea level will come down with time."
The towering waves killed at least 10,672 people in mainland India and the Andamans and left more than 5,700 missing and feared dead, mainly in the Andamans which had a population of 356,000, according to official figures.
Since the quake, the Andamans have been rocked by around 130 aftershocks, some registering over 6.0 on the Richter scale.
01/15/2005 12:37 GMT - AFP