KALLAR, Jan 24: Many fishermen on India's tsunami-hit south eastern coast say they will stay far away from the shore on Jan 26 as rumours swirl that another killer wave will batter the region.

With memories of the devastation caused by the Dec 26 tsunami fresh, many coastal residents say they will move inland on Jan 26 despite attempts by the authorities to dispel the rumours.

"I have heard the next tsunami will come on Jan 26 and it will completely sink the entire Andaman islands," said Adimulam, a 34-year old fisherman from Kallar village in southeastern India's Tamil Nadu state.

More than 100 people were killed and 130 houses washed away in Kallar, one of many fishing villages that line the Tamil Nadu coast. The state is home to 62 million people.

Besides the eastern coast of India, the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, 1,200kms away in the Indian Ocean, was badly devastated by the tsunami. Similar rumours among survivors in the island chain are rattling nerves there.

"Everybody says the 26th is a bad day. You had both the tsunami and the Gujarat earthquake on the 26th so we are all scared about this date," Adimulam said, late on Sunday.

He was referring to a powerful earthquake in India's western Gujarat state on Jan 26, 2001, which killed 20,000 people. Jan 26 is also India's Republic Day, a national holiday.

"I have decided not to go anywhere near the sea on that day." Authorities have dismissed the rumours as baseless and threatened to arrest anyone spreading them. But that has done little to ease the fear of survivors, many of them illiterate fishermen. Kallar is in Nagapattinam district, the worst-hit district in India with more than 6,000 deaths. -Reuters