The life in Chennai, capital of the worst-affected state of Tamil Nadu in south India, is coming back to normalcy Tuesday after suffering the severe killer waves on Sunday morning.
"We are trying to resume the life in Chennai , India after the tsunami hit our city and killed around 200 people along the beach of Marina," N. R. Harikumar, press relations officer in the Information and Tourism Department of Tamil Nadu, told Xinhua.
He said most of the dead were old people and children playing along the beach when the tsunami engulfed the whole area all of a sudden around 6:30 Sunday morning.
Police in the city of Chennai, which has a population of some 10 million, are still cordoning off the Marina beach and roads leading to the seafront remain closed to prevent further casualties from any aftershocks, even though the sea is calming down.
"The state government is now busy with the relief work and distribution of relief materials, including food and medicine, to the most-affected areas like Nagapattinam, Kanniyakumari, Pondicherry and some other places," Harikumar said. Relief materials and donations were coming in from all over the country.
Life is back to normal in the city with people resuming their work. Hospitals are working hard to take care of the wounded from the huge tidal waves.
Officials in Tamil Nadu reported more deaths on Tuesday, bringing the toll in the state to more than 3,200, of which 2,300 were killed in the Nagapattinam district alone.
Death toll in India at large has already reached 7,000 and could rise to 9,000 as more than 2,000 are still missing in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands off the coast of Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, the Indian Coast Guard has pressed all operational ships and aircrafts into search and rescue operations and crews reported seeing hundreds of bodies along the eastern coast.
The tsunami, triggered on Sunday by the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years, wreaked havoc around the Indian Ocean, swamping coastal villages and towns, destroying buildings and sweeping away boats and vehicles.