The toll in the India reached 15,694 with 9,571 people confirmed dead and at least 6,123 people missing, many of them presumed dead, official estimates showed late Tuesday.

The number of those missing in the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands had gone up to 6,010 and 900 bodies have been disposed of, Lieutenant General B.S. Thakur told reporters Tuesday in the Andamanese capital of Port Blair.

However the overall picture remains uncertain with locals, police and aid workers fearing 10,000 people died across the 500-plus island chain of 356,000 people which stretches more than 800 kilometres (500 miles).

India said despite the rise in missing people, it did not immediately need foreign aid in the archipelago.

"These figures are merging because we are getting in touch with village captains who are providing accurate headcounts," said the general, in charge of a mammoth rescue and relief operation in the devastated islands.

"We're grateful to governments which want to help but as of now we have the resources," junior home minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said in Port Blair, capital of the islands 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) southeast of the Indian mainland and home to military bases along with tribal populations.

The Andamanese administration balked at labelling those missing for 10 days as presumed dead saying Indian law prohibited such declaration in case a body remained traceless.

"This is a different type of tragedy and some of these people listed as missing may be found on India mainland after even five years and some can emerge from the thick forests we have here," the island chain's federal administrator Ram Kapse said.

"Ultimately, the Indian government or parliament will have to take note of it but right now we cannot issue a blanket statement," Kapse told a joint news conference with Thakur.

The hunt for bodies off the archipelago was proceeding on a war-footing amid growing calls for help from many of the 38 inhabited islands.

"They're only talking big while we're starving. This shouldn't be made into some politics," said Manik Guin, a survivor from Hut Bay, one of the devastated islands, after being evacuated.

The stepped-up relief drive followed reports that a civilian administrator was seized by hungry survivors in the Nicobar Islands at the weekend. He was freed hours later after promising to provide more food.

"These are sporadic incidents and they're being taken care of," said Ram Kapse, federal administrator for the islands.

Foreign aid agencies in the capital Port Blair have expressed anger at the rejection of their offers of help for the islands, many of which are out of bounds to both mainland Indians and foreigners due to security concerns and a desire to protect endangered Stone Age tribes from outsiders.

With India pushing for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, New Delhi has been keen to show itself as a regional power rather than a victim and has dispatched aid to Sri Lanka and other countries hit by the tsunamis.

Thakur said five naval ships and military aircraft were hopping between islands where thousands of soldiers, doctors and administrators were deployed in relief work.

"We now also have deployed dog squads to help ground personnel find corpses in rubble and aircraft and ships engaged in relief and rescue are also keeping an eye for bodies in the waters," he said.

Vice Admiral Raman Puri, chief of the Integrated Defense Staff, told reporters in New Delhi that "98 percent of the immediate" rescue work was over.

"At least 98 percent of the immediate relief and rescue work in the Andamans in over. But we are not giving up hope of finding survivors a week after the tsunami," said Puri.

Junior minister Jaiswal said a second relief phase would soon be launched to find new homes for island populations.

"A rehabilitation wing will be created and the government has told the Andamanese administration to prepare an action-plan by January 15," he said.

India's director general of health services S.K. Agarwal, who arrived in Port Blair this week, said 40 medical specialists were working alongside local doctors on islands where the waves wiped out the health infrastructure.

"There are no signs of any existing or impending disease outbreaks although sporadic cases of diarrhoea and malaria are being reported," said Agarwal.

Teams of psychiatrists were also being sent to the islands to help traumatised survivors. The islands had only one resident psychiatrist.

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