Lone tsunami survivor found after 25 days

A tribal man lived off coconuts for about 25 days on a tsunami devastated Indian island before he was rescued by a search boat…

A tribal man lived off coconuts for about 25 days on a tsunami devastated Indian island before he was rescued by a search boat, a military officer said today.

Mr Michael Mangal was brought out of the tiny island of Pillow Panja earlier this week after the crew of a rescue dinghy saw him waving a flag made of his clothes, the officer said.

Mr Mangal, who is from the Nicobarese tribe, told his rescuers the first giant wave which hit the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands on December 26th first sucked him into sea before subsequents waves threw him back to land.

"After that, once the waters receded he went to his village, but didn't find anybody," the officer told reporters over telephone from Port Blair, the capital of the remote archipelago which are 1,200 km (750 miles) from the Indian mainland.

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"It seems he just survived on coconuts."

Around 7,500 people, a majority of them Nicobarese tribals who normally live on the coast, have died in the island chain which had a population of more than 356,000.