Andaman residents consider move after latest tsunami scare

Villagers rest on a pavement after evacuating to higher ground in Phuket early yesterday amidst tsunami warning due to a major earthquake in India's Nicobar Islands. Thai authorities said they were pleased with their tsunami warning system that sounded an alarm following a major earthquake in the Nicobar islands in the Indian Ocean. PHOTO: AFP

"Every major quake makes me worried, and my ageing parents are thinking about migrating to Chennai," on the Indian mainland, said student Prem Kumar. "They cant take it any more."

His parents are not the only ones -- some among the hundreds of mainlanders who have arrived here in the past few years to work in the service and tourist industries have been packing to leave again, officials said.

It was late Sunday on the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands when an earthquake, which the US Geological Survey said measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, shattered the tranquillity of residents.