"These residents have been evacuated to other islands as a temporary measure and now officials are being sent to these islands to assess conditions," Commander Salil Mehta, spokesman for Andaman's military command, told AFP.

"Once safe areas on these islands are ensured, then the islanders will be rehabilitated according to their will and wish," Mehta said in Port Blair, capital of the federally administered chain that was hard hit by the December 26 tsunamis.

The devastated islands that have been evacuated include Tilangchang, Little Nicobar, Pillomillow and Kondul.

Mehta's assurance followed fears expressed by some residents of the archipelago that India might abandon the six islands that were home to thousands of tribal people, Sri Lankans and settlers from mainland India.

The army spokesman said the islands would "be rehabilitated as part of the long-term rehabilitation plan." He said no timeframe has been set for their rehabilitation.

The army's immediate focus is on seven other hard-hit islands where engineers plan to built 10,100 shelters in less than 40 days in a race to beat the drenching monsoon rains that start in April, Mehta said.

Some 40,500 tsunami refugees are still living in makeshift camps, waiting for the shelters to be built.

Andaman authorities say the tsunamis claimed 1,386 lives and left 5,764 people missing in the archipelago.

But relief workers say the casualty toll may be higher due to a lack of records on thousands of people who settled illegally in the islands. The island chain had a total official population of some 350,000.

Including India's southern mainland, the tsunamis claimed some 10,749 lives in India.

The towering waves flattened thousands of homes and buildings and wrecked 70 percent of jetties in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago's 36 inhabited islands. There are 572 islands in the chain.

The island chain lies about 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from mainland India but is just 150 kilometers from Indonesia, where the huge undersea earthquake that triggered the killer waves struck.

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