U.S. tsunami inquiries narrowed to 755
From Andrea Koppel
CNN Washington Bureau
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The State Department is rapidly whittling down the number of inquiries regarding U.S. citizens who might have been in the tsunami-affected zone when the disaster struck last month, department officials said Monday.
The number of inquiries has dropped from about 6,000 at the beginning of last week to about 755 Monday afternoon.
Eighteen Americans have been confirmed dead, and another 17 are missing and presumed dead.
Earlier in the day, the number of presumed dead had been put at 18, but one person on that list has been located, the State Department said.
The powerful tsunamis swept through coastal communities from Thailand to East Africa on December 26, killing more than 140,000 people.
The inquiries represent the number of phone calls the State Department received after the disaster, and the department has stressed that one phone call does not necessarily represent one person.
Some on the list are duplicates, others were not in the affected area, and still more returned home safely, but that fact wasn't reported back to the State Department.
In the middle of his tour of the affected region last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell ordered the department to speed up its work on the list.
