More than 10,000 people are now believed to be dead or missing in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, even as rescue efforts continue to locate survivors in distant islands, most of which have been completely destroyed by Sunday's killer tsunami.

"The conditions at Car Nicobar are very bad," said Andaman and Nicobar Islands Inspector General of Police Samsher Deol.

"There is very little human or animal life left there, everything is finished," Deol told Indo-Asian News Agency. The island had a population of around 20,000, more than half of which are missing.

The figure of confirmed dead is just 359 -- according to the number of bodies discovered -- but many say that is not even the tip of the iceberg.

"I would say that at this moment, more than 20,000 people are either dead or missing," former MP Bishnu Pad Ray said.

"We still have no idea how many are dead or missing in (the islands of) Trinket and Nancowry. At Hud Bay, the store house has been looted and panic is spreading everywhere. Also, what happens usually is that when dead bodies lie in the water, they are eaten by crocodiles and they then disappear.

"We are particularly afraid of an epidemic now," Ray added.

The tsunami has also submerged Indira Point, the southernmost point of India and named after former prime minister Indira Gandhi.There's no news of the four international scientists and 16 otherswho were at Indira Point, 140 km from the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Even more worrying is news that lava is erupting from near Baratang in the Middle Andamans, 100 km from Port Blair, which hasa population of 2,500.

The Indian Navy Thursday brought back 580 survivors from Hud Bay island and survivors said at least 1,000 are still missing.

"There were 8,000 people in Hud Bay," M. T. Naidu, who used to run a bakery in the island. "Where are most of them? No one knows."

There are conflicting reports about the population of various islands and the death toll.

While many say that Car Nicobar, one of the worst hit areas, had around 20,000 people, an equal number insist that it was actually around 35,000.

If the second number is true, then many more could be missing.

The survivors are being sheltered in two schools -- the Rabindra Bango Vidhalaya and the Haddo Tamil School -- and the Gobind Ballabh Pant Hospital, where beds are overflowing with injured patients with broken limbs, eyes gouged out and even maggots in swollen feet.

"The pain is terrible," said Ratindra Nath, who had broken his collarbone, ribcage and left leg. "I'm alive but barely so."

Across Port Blair, the main city of the island chain in the Bayof Bengal, the splashing sea is a constant companion but beside itlie broken boats, ripped apart boundary walls almost a quarter of a km from shore, and fallen trees.

Most of the jetties in the islands have been destroyed, though a makeshift airfield has been made at Car Nicobar for flights by Indian Air Force AN-32 transport planes that are supplementing theefforts of Indian Navy ships in the rescue operations.

There is no running water anywhere across Port Blair and power supply is sporadic, as are telephone communications. But the island has suffered the least damage. In most other places, everything from homes to offices, bazaars to churches has been swept away.