WASHINGTON, Jan 4: US authorities are still looking for answers to nearly 5,000 inquiries about missing Americans in parts of Asia hit by the tsunami. The State 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 has 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 neighbourhood of 5,000 inquiries that we have not been able to nail down."

The State Department and the US missions abroad are still trying to locate these missing people with the help of consular staff at the site of the disaster. Mr 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."

He said State Department officials were now going through the list to eliminate duplications or to reconcile different inquiries that might be for the same person. Earlier, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is leading a US delegation to the affected region, said that there were 4,000 to 5,000 Americans still unaccounted for.