WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- The State Department said Monday it is still looking for answers to nearly 5,000 inquiries about missing Americans in parts of Asia hit by the tsunami.
The department's deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Washington that since Dec. 26, when a severe earthquake and consequent tsunamis struck 11 Indian Ocean countries, his department received nearly 20,000 inquiries about missing Americans.
"We have been able to satisfactorily respond to three-quarters of those inquiries, or about 15,000," he told the briefing. "That leaves us within the neighborhood of 5,000 inquiries that we have not been able to nail down."
The State Department and the U.S. missions abroad are still trying to locate these missing people with the help of consular staff on the site of the disaster, he said.
Ereli, however, said he could not give a precise number of missing Americans as "there's not a one-to-one correlation between inquires and individuals."
