Groups of rare aboriginal tribes already near the edge of extinction in the Andaman and Nicobar islands survived a massive tsunami, the coast guard said today.

Five tribes numbering 989 people were safe after Sunday's onslaught, including the 100-member Onge, 250 of the fiercely independent Sentinelese, 39 of the almost extinct Andamanese, 350 of the Jarawa and 250 of the hunter-gatherer Shompen.

They were located by helicopter and some were reached by boat and provided with supplies and medical treatment, director-general of the Coast Guard, Arun Kumar Singh, said.

The Indian Navy had been hunting for the aborigines on the tsunami-savaged Nicobar islands amid fears that any harm to some of nature's most enigmatic communities could push them into extinction. The mangrove islet of Campbell Bay is one of hundreds in the archipelago, some partly or fully reserved for aborigines.

"The great Andamanese tribes are all OK," Lieutenant Governor Ram Kapse told reporters. "There are no casualties among them."

The Shompen live along riverbanks in the dense mangroves surrounding the settlement of Campbell Bay, 800 kilometres (500 miles) south of the Andamanese capital Port Blair.

For centuries they have shied away from outside contact, notably with Indians. On Sunday, the island chain bore the full brunt of the massive waves triggered by a huge undersea earthquake off nearby Sumatra, Indonesia.

The Indian Government in the mid-1970s sent retired military personnel as settlers to the breathtaking tropical territory amid friction with neighbouring Indonesia over ownership.

The Onge tribe was confined to 25 square kilometres after the Forest Department took over their land in 1977 and face further loss of territory as the government builds homes, roads, jetties and a match factory near their reserve.

The Sentinelese on North Sentinel island have constantly repulsed outsiders with showers of arrows and remain one of the least studied of the tribes.

The Andamanese, on the verge of extinction, were decimated by disease from colonisers in the mid-19th century and remain settled on tiny Strait Island. The once reclusive and hostile Jawara occupy 639 square kilometres on the south and middle Andaman islands.

But in recent years they have been steadily engaging with tourists since a road split their land. One other tribe numbering 30,000, the Nicobarese, are not decreasing and have been partly assimilated into Indian society.

The origins of the endangered Andaman tribes, today only about 12 per cent of the overall population of some 350,000, still mystify anthropologists. Genetic evidence suggests the pygmy-like people with dark skin and tightly curled hair have lived on the Andamans for at least 60,000 years.

"They are very important -- a link to our roots we come from, to our prehistoric days when we were at the hunting and gathering stage," Ajoy Bagchi, executive director of the New Delhi-based Anthropological Survey of India said.

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