POST-TSUNAMI REVIVAL OF IAF STATION AT CAR NICOBAR

The Indian Air Force's base on the Car Nicobar Island was devastated in the Tsunami five odd years ago from now, on December 26, 2004. One hundred and sixteen IAF officers and men, their wives and children died in the horrendous disaster. Little remained of the air base, which was established as India's southernmost defence post, a sentinel against the unseen forces lurking in the regions nearby. The morning of December 26, changed all that.

In true military spirit, the IAF personnel worked night and day to ensure that India's southernmost Air Force station in the Bay of Bengal was operational again, ‘Combat Fit’ to be precise, just three-and-a-half months after the unbalanced ocean, turned ferocious by man’s inhuman treatment to Mother Nature’s blessings, claimed 3,513 lives in Andaman and Nicobar reducing the base to a wasteland of rubble and corpses.

On April 14, 2005, the Car Nicobar Air Base resumed operations once again. The runway was repaired, navigational aids and the basic infrastructure was put in place. The operational capabilities of the station were back to normal and the station was once again ‘Combat Fit’.

There were no frills, no luxuries and there was every possibility that the officers would continue to fight extreme adversities like they had been doing those past three and a half months. The amenities were very rudimentary but they knew they were working in unusual circumstances 1,300 km from the Indian mainland where the geographical location and the destruction of infrastructure had torn life and affected communication.

Picked up from different air bases in India, they were sent to Car Nicobar immediately after the Tsunami to rebuild the air base from the dust.

Sergeant Y S Sinha, one of the few officers who were still posted at the Car Nicobar Air Base on a second extension until last year i.e. September, 2009, narrated some of his unforgettable experiences to me while I was at Car Nicobar during the Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) project for the welfare of the Nicobarese tribe, sponsored by the NGO – ‘Save the Children’.

He said that for a first time visitor to the base, the sight could be shocking. The destruction was so overwhelming that just imagining what it must have looked like when the waters raged in on December 26, left you numb. In fact, the scale of the devastation on Car Nicobar Island became most evident only on entering the Air Base because en route all villages had been flattened reducing them to an empty ghost land with sinister boards reading 'Erstwhile Perka, Erstwhile Small Lalpathy, and Erstwhile Malacca.' The – ‘Erstwhile’, indicated where the villages and their inhabitants once stood and lived.

“In fact, the homes in those villages did not have much concrete and were made of wood, so they were completely washed away. Hence, only a few pillars could be seen in the debris, the rest had been flattened,” said Sergeant Sinha.

The Air Base, on the other end of the island, was a full-fledged helicopter station with a huge infrastructure. Around 700 staff and personnel lived there with their families. It had two schools, VIP guest houses for the Air Chief Marshal and other visiting dignitaries, a shopping complex and homes for the Station Commander, officers and airmen.

The concrete rubble, the partially destroyed structures and the 160 acres of land lost to water ingress here had to be seen to understand the quantum of destruction.

After clearing the debris for six months after the disaster, what remained was a chilling reminder of the tragedy. Cars lay in mangled heaps, homes seemed to have been blasted into unrecognizable shapes - second floors flung upside down, blackened trees lying in gigantic tangled piles. A refrigerator flung out of someone's kitchen was now lodged in the branches of a tree.

The author at the 45 feet tall, huge fuel tank lying in Malacca village, where it was thrown by the Tsunami from its original location a kilometer away within the Air Force Station’s premises at Car Nicobar. It was packed with fuel when the Tsunami had struck. Such dreadful was the impact of the Tsunami which was traveling at the speed of about 700 km per hour, the speed of a jetliner from the epicenter of the massive under-water earthquake.

The very first priority was to get the runway working for relief activity and the men made use of whatever came their way - even axes to chop the wood and manually pushed it off the runway.

The 9,000 feet runway originally measured around 3,000 feet when it was constructed by the Japanese during their occupation of the island between 1942 and 1945 during the Second World War. It was taken over by the Indian Air Force in 1956, post independence.

As Sergeant Sinha told me, about forty-five tons of epoxy was used to repair the runway. The repairs began everyday post 4 pm, after the flights for the day ended. The work went on through the night till 4 am. The epoxy needed three hours to dry and the flights resumed at around 7 am.

The Air Base lost 116 officers, men and family to the tsunami. Those who survived were immediately evacuated, given a month's leave and subsequently transferred to other stations. The base was no longer deemed a family station and new officers and men were sent to replace, rebuild and carry out the relief operation – ‘Operation Madad (help)’.

The officers and men got down to clearing the debris, disposing the bodies and spent all their waking hours bringing some semblance of order. The officers and men used to consume rice, dal and vegetables from a common kitchen. Pilots who flew down as part of the relief activity sometimes stayed on to work for a month or so and would feel sad about leaving. The first break from work came on January 16, 2005 when everyone went for a picnic.

At the peak of the relief effort, around 5,000 men were pressed into service. Around 10,000 residents were evacuated during ‘Operation Madad’ from the Car Nicobar Island. The IAF flew around 226 sorties till January 26, 2005.

As the crisis grew, Heroes were born!

Tributes to the Bravado of the Heroes of Indian Air Force!!!

TRIBUTE TO 13 YEARS OLD CHAMPION OF TSUNAMI

Meghana Rajshekhar

the gallant13 years old D/o an Indian Air Force Officer posted at Car Nicobar, survived the killer Tsunami for 3 days at the Kakana coast in Car Nicobar.

The mystery unfolds further…

Human Spirit Shines Through Tsunami-cast Gloom

Dear friends, Meghna Rajshekhar is the 13 year old girl from the Car Nicobar Island, survivor of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26^th December, 2004. She survived by clinging on to a door plank in the ocean near Car Nicobar for two days without any water and food.

The gallant daughter of late Indian Air Force Officer, Squadron Leader Raj Shekhar, Meghna was swept out to sea along with her father, her mother, younger brother and 77 others. While the others drowned she floated for two days on a wooden door plank.

On 26 December 2004 morning, 35 feet high gargantuan waves of the catastrophic Tsunami struck the Indian Air Force Base in Car Nicobar. She was washed away in the ocean with her parents. She cried 11 times when rescue helicopters hovered over the Andaman Sea in search of feebly possible survivors. After two and a half days, the door plank on which she was clinging drifted towards the shore. She was swarmed by snakes and suffered severe bruises. She was found walking in a daze by the local Nicobarese tribal people of Car Nicobar, one of whom helped her reach the Indian Air Force airport on his damaged bicycle.

Her parents, however, were not spared by the 35 feet high wave which destroyed the air base. She was sent to Hyderabad to stay with an uncle, her closest living relative.

Meghna trembled visibly when she sighted her favorite coffee mug in the rubble that had once been her home on the Car Nicobar Island. "I want to see my home," the 14-year-old girl said on reaching the remote Island on 26th December 2005 for a memorial service for the 119 Indian Air Force personnel and their relatives who died on December 26, 2004.

I still have vivid memories of her graphic interview that we watched on NDTV on the 29 December, 2004, sitting in the verandah of our house at Port Blair as we didn’t dare to go indoors due to the unrelenting series of hundreds of aftershocks of the massive earthquake. My eyes are invariably filled with tears every time I reminisce about it.

Meghna was so astonishingly eloquent about her unimaginably horrendous experience of the fiasco. "I remember seeing choppers passing overhead 11 times and several times relief planes passed but they did not spot me and finally a wave threw me back on the shore," Meghna said. The badly-bruised girl was found 20 kilometers (12 miles) from her wrecked home two & a half days later.

"I fought off sea snakes to stay alive and today I want to see my home for the last time," the 9th -grader said.

Trembling, she walked gingerly through the cordoned-off rubble near Car Nicobar's golden beaches. Tears glistened as she picked up household objects.

"Hey, my bangle… and… Oh! Here's, dad's shoes!" she said of her father, an Indian Air Force meteorologist.

"I've found my coffee mug... mom used to fill to the brim with milk," Meghna whispered after picking up a bone-china cup filled with snails and sea garbage.

“Meghna's escort, Lieutenant Colonel N Chakravarty, broke down while the top-ranking commanders attending the memorial service at Car Nicobar watched in silence as the young orphan walked through the debris,” reported Vishnu Som of NDTV on 28 December, 2005, a year after the disaster.

Chakravarty's two children were Meghna's best friends until they too perished in the Andaman Sea along with their mother.

Following medical treatment, Meghna was handed over to her grandparents in the southern city of Hyderabad where she was enrolled in a boarding school.

"During holidays I go and spend time with anyone I like," she said pointing to surviving Indian Air Force officers and their families attending the service.  "They are my fathers and mothers. I love them as much as they love me," she said, tears staining her flowing white shirt.

The girl said she was determined to write a book about her spine-tingling ordeal.

"I have already completed two and a half chapters of my experience and I want to record the experience of others in the rest of my book but first I want to complete my studies."

Commander Salil Mehta, a former colleague of Meghna's father, was at her side like a shadow.  "It takes guts to come back to a location of such unimaginable tragedy," said Mehta, unable to conceal his own emotions as Meghna tugged at the sleeves of his ceremonial naval uniform jacket.

The 18-year-old went into a shell the day she also gave up collecting butterflies. It was the day the tsunami struck their home and took away her parents and eight-year-old brother.

Five years after the tragedy, now, the emotions she can’t speak about may yet find release. Every night before going to bed, Meghna sits at her desk in her hostel to pour her emotions into a diary. Some day she might get it published.

Meghna had been a curious child. She had got up early that Sunday morning for some “fishing and for collecting butterflies and insects” for her “zoological collections” when the waves came.

She spent the next two days and nights alone on the beach surrounded by the dead, turning them over one after another to see if her parents and brother were among them.

A year on from then, the news channel ‘Aaj Tak’ telecasted another interview of the brave-heart… The teenager seemed to have coped somewhat as she finished her exams, refusing to let the tragedy cost her a year. But she’s turned a loner. “She doesn’t watch movies; she won’t even accompany her classmates to picnics,” a teacher said. “She is afraid of the waves; she sometimes has hallucinations.”

I take my hat off to the exemplarily gallant Meghna Rajshekhar who can undeniably be considered a true idol for all the children the world over. It was her late father’s prudent teachings and upbringing that helped her understand the nature of the waves, sea creatures like snakes, flow of the wind and the position of the constellation of the stars in the sky to her life-saving advantage in such unheard-of adverse conditions. And, of course, the supremely brave composure that’s the benchmark attribute of the daughter of a valiant Air Force officer.

God bless her!!!

TRAGEDY IN INDIA'S LAST ISLAND– THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Tragedy of the Shompen

The Shompen are as precariously poised on the brink of extinction as the four other hunter-gatherer tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the home to four Negrito and two Indo-Mongoloid tribes. Those belonging to the Negrito racial reserve – the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawas and the Sentinelese - are still at hunting-gathering stage of economy. Small in number, sensitive and isolated, they have been under severe stress. The Indo-Mongoloid clan of the Nicobarese, relatively sturdy and resilient, has accepted the challenge of change and have prospered and multiplied. The members of the other Mongoloid community, the Shompen, semi nomadic and living in small, scattered settlements, still shy away from outsiders. They are somewhat better off than the Great Andamanese and the Onge, whose numbers have sharply dwindled. However they are not as isolated as the Sentinelese and the Jarawas.

Ancient tribe, The Shompen: Their self-sufficiency is slowly being undermined.

It is India’s last island and its largest. Beyond it stretches the mighty Indian Ocean. One of the historic archipelago of over 572 islands & islets in the Bay of Bengal, known as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Great Nicobar first entered the wider public consciousness in December, 2004, when the catastrophic Tsunami wreaked havoc on the island. Great Nicobar, with its rather large habitation, of settlers from the mainland India at Campbell Bay suffered colossal damage, both in terms of human lives and in terms of property and infrastructure. The scars are still hauntingly vivid, about five years later.

The lighthouse at Indira Point, Campbell Bay, left submerged by Tsunami

Its Tsunami connection apart, “Great Nicobar is also known as the land of the Shompen, one of the last surviving stone-age tribes in the world. Not as well known as the Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands, the Shompen are as precariously poised on the brink of extinction as the four other hunter-gatherer tribes (the Jarawa, the Andamanese, the Onge and the Sentinelese),” wrote an astounded Meena Gupta in The Hindu about three years ago, which stimulated me to write this post, today.

Classified as a Primitive Tribal Group (PTG), the Shompen have light yellow-brown skins, straight hair, narrow eyes and stocky build, giving them a strong resemblance to the people of Myanmar (the erstwhile Burma) and Indonesia.

“Like the Jarawas, they are skilled hunter-gatherers but, unlike them, also raise plantations of various crops such as pandanus and lemon and colocasia. They subsist primarily on these plants, wild boar, wild fruits, honey and fish. And like the Jarawas, they are, by and large, disease-free.”

“The tragedy of the Shompen — indeed, of all the primitive tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands — is that until a few decades ago, they were monarchs of all they surveyed. Only 50 years down the line, their lands have been occupied, their forests chopped down, their animals hunted and they themselves outnumbered by people from an alien culture.”

History has it that unlike the major islands of the Andamans and some Nicobar Islands, Great Nicobar was, by and large, undisturbed by incursions of outsiders until the late 1960s. The Shompen lived in the interior of the island, inside the forest and along the rivers; the Nicobarese lived along the coast, to the north of the island. The two tribes lived in a kind of armed truce after intermittent skirmishes.

A major influx of population started in 1969 with the settlement of several hundred ex-servicemen from the mainland India on the south-eastern coast of Great Nicobar, and a proposal to settle several hundred more on the western coast. Even more damaging, the East-West road (measuring 43 km in length) was constructed through the pristine Shompen territory. Thus, a tribal reserve area under the Andaman and Nicobar (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956, was opened to outsiders.

The area of the reserve has also shrunk over the years. The ‘reserved area’ in Great Nicobar, which initially covered the whole island (1044.54 sq km as per the notification dated 2 April, 1957, issued by the Chief Commissioner of the Andaman and Nicobar islands), has been reduced to 853.19 sq km. The population of outsiders has been growing steadily since 1969, while the number of the Shompen, which is alarmingly low, has remained stagnant or is shrinking.

According to the Census, the population of the Shompen was 212 in 1971, 223 in 1981, 131 in1991, and 398 in 2001. These figures are, of course, estimations and the discrepancies, particularly in the last figure, are quite obvious, as the Shompen, being forest-dwelling, nomadic hunter-gatherers and averse to the entry of others into their settlements, do not lend themselves to easy or accurate counting.

Several development activities are currently being carried on in Great Nicobar, all with an inevitable deleterious impact on the Shompen. Some are security-related given the strategic location of Great Nicobar almost at the southern end of India and its proximity to many international shipping routes. Such activities cannot, perhaps, be avoided.

A Shompen family (1980s)

But the three major issues that pose the greatest danger to the Shompen are not defence or security-related: the burgeoning population of outsiders, the renovation and construction of the East-West road through the heart of the Shompen reserve, and the free food and other items being given to the Shompen by the government.

Despite the fact that Great Nicobar was severely affected by the 2004 Tsunami, it does not seem to have had any permanent impact on the number of people who wish to live there; the population today has grown considerably from that in 2001. Apart from the impact on the Shompen, the numbers need to be controlled and reduced from the point of view of the island’s carrying capacity.

The island’s ecology will indisputably be destroyed by such large numbers and so will the people who live in harmony with it. And this, my dear friends, is not an alarming issue that is confined to the Great Nicobar Island only, but is rather a very burning issue in the larger interest of the entire delicate coral islands of Andaman & Nicobar that have been rendered even more vulnerable after the massive earthquake & Tsunami of 26^th December, 2004.

Permanent shelters constructed in Great Nicobar after Tsunami

The construction and repair of the East-West road is an even greater threat to the Shompen. This road, which had been constructed long ago and abandoned, fell into disrepair and was not used for several decades. Indeed, there was no real need to maintain it since the settlement on the western coast which the road was supposed to link, never came up. Since the Tsunami, however, repair work on a lot of structures was taken up, including on the East-West road.

Thus the Shompen are faced with the renewed danger of incursions into their territory. Moreover, the laborers from the mainland bring with them a totally different culture. Even more worrisome, they bring diseases to which the Shompen have little or no immunity. Such diseases can spread like an epidemic, as happened some years ago when diarrhoea killed a large number of the tribe.

But, by far, the most damaging activity is the administration’s new-found practice of doling out free rations. This has been in operation for some years, but increased after the tsunami, in the mistaken belief that the Shompen were being protected from hunger and starvation. The Shompen, who are a totally self-sufficient hunter-gatherer-grower people living on wild animals, fruit, tubers, fish and honey, are being given rice and biscuits and alien food products. They are also being given cloth, though the Shompen have an ancient tradition of making cloth out of tree bark, which they wear swathed around their waists.

Thus an insidious culture of dependency is being created, undermining the self-sufficiency of these people so closely attached to Mother Nature, precisely on the lines of what is being done with the originally self-reliant Nicobarese. And all this is irrefutably thanks to the worsening culture of vote-bank politics in India.

As a matter of fact, the issues of the aboriginal tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar islands are so different from that of the other tribes elsewhere in the world that it calls for an extremely sensitive, prudent and specialized administration. Unfortunately, most senior officials in the Andaman and Nicobar come to the islands from the mainland India, for a brief period and do not have a clue about the adept approach required for these rare heritage tribes. Such officials also end up resisting any kind of sensitization, invariably.

Unless the administration wakes up to the fact that they have a very uncommon and precious commodity in the form of these heritage primitive tribes, one that needs extremely delicate and sensitive handling, it is more than likely that these few hundred people will, in due course, disappear, leaving an indelible scar in history about the thoughtlessness of the so-called caretakers of humanity, something which would trigger a state of emergency vis-à-vis the very existence of our habitat, at large.

Excerpts courtesy: Meena Gupta, the Hindu; Stats: world's oldest tribes

The Nicobarese Tribe Wakes up to Sustainable DRR - A Case Study

Dawn of responsive attitude amongst the frivolous Nicobarese tribe is the harbinger of indispensable sustainability in DRR initiatives in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands… 

James Reuben, a 12 years old boy, who stayed beside the Senior Secondary School near the seashore at the village of Malacca, Car Nicobar when the ferocious Tsunami struck the island of peace on 26th December, 2004, scampered away with his father and the rest of his family towards the jungle in the interior of the island, immediately after the islanders heard the bloodcurdling sound of the tsunami waves approaching the island that reminded some of them of the earsplitting hoot of a gargantuan anaconda.

 

Now, four odd years after one of the most devastating catastrophes that humankind has ever been witness to, James Reuben, a 16 years old maturing teenager has been selected by WBVHA’s Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) team as a promising member of the Search & Rescue wing of the Task Force Group (TFG) of the village of Malacca.  

 

While attending the comprehensive training for “Strengthening of the TFGs” at New Malacca, where he, now, stays with his family in the permanent shelter provided to them by the A & N Administration, James says ruefully in his Nicobarese tongue, “If, at all, we had the requisite fundamental knowledge and expertise and the Rescue & First Aid kits and the other essential equipments that WBVHA & Save the Children - BRB have now provided to us, at the time tsunami had struck, quite a lot of lives would have been saved”. 

 

James, now, makes sure that he doesn’t miss a single training session, awareness program and other participatory learning and action (PLA) exercises organized by WBVHA under the purview of the visionary CLDRR project.

 

 

He is a regular learner and a partaker who motivates the other members of the community to practice the techniques and methods taught by WBVHA’s proficient trainers and instructors. 

 

 

The Nicobarese community was busy head over heels during the month of March, 2009, observing the holy fasting of 40 days which lasts up to Easter. Hence, all the Village Headmen had denied WBVHA the permission to conduct any activities during the months of March & April. 

Nevertheless, with the Program Coordinator meeting the Bishop of Diocese, A & N Islands, Rt. Rev. Christopher Paul and convincing him of the inevitable need of carrying out the necessary training and awareness programs without a hitch with the imperative participation of the community for the far-reaching welfare of the entire Nicobarese community, all the village Headmen were directed by the Bishop to permit the WBVHA project team to conduct the same, who saw reason and the significance of the CLDRR initiatives of WBVHA. 

 Bishop of Diocese, A & N Islands in the pink shirt with the Deputy Commissioner, Nicobars, Mr. Srikanth being garlanded by WBVHA staff.

Shrinath Vashishtha, Program Coordinator of WBVHA handing over the Health & Rescue Kits to Mr. Lionel Nicomede, the First Headman of the village of Chukchucha, Car Nicobar Island,  accompanied by Mr. Peterson Job, the mercurial Second Headman.

In a nutshell, this proved to be the very dawn of a much-needed responsive attitude amongst the frivolous Nicobarese tribe and can be fittingly comprehended as the harbinger of the indispensable sustainability in the CLDRR initiatives amongst the community.

 

Case Study prepared by -

SHRINATH VASHISHTHA

Car Nicobar.

LATEST SITUATION IN ANDAMAN & NICOBAR ISLANDS AT CAR NICOBAR

Hi! I’m back with you all, my dear friends, after a long month of Sundays, from Car Nicobar. In fact, it’s been a mighty wide-ranging state of affairs at the Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) project that I’ve been coordinating for over past 8 months, now at one of the toughest territories to work in the entire Indian sub-continent. Anyways, the rigorously comprehensive project continues towards materializing the sustainability ambitions in the Disaster Risk Reduction endeavors for the far-reaching welfare of the Nicobarese tribal community.

For now, my dear friends, here’s presenting you all with some fascinating pictures that satiate the nature-lovers’ cravings and also the curiosity of the aware citizens of the world…

Enjoy these latest pictures of Car Nicobar…

The lighthouse near Mus Jetty, Car Nicobar behind the breakwater amongst the aesthetically lined up coconut trees

The dense coconut plantations on both sides of the main road that has been rebuilt after Tsunami, stretching from the Mus Jetty to the Headquarter area, the administrative hub of Car Nicobar at Perka village

The cute cove alongside the Mus Jetty sculpted by the Tsunami, whose brunt is still evidently noticeable on the landmass

A cargo vessel & M V Sentinel, one of the oldest passenger ships run on the inter-island routes by the Andaman & Nicobar Administration, berthed at the Mus Jetty, Car Nicobar

Disaster Risk Reduction at Nicobar- A Case Study

Metamorphosed Nicobarese: From skeptic restraint to candid participation……

Sabrina Jack, a ten years old school student from Small Lapathy village was attending a participatory learning and action (PLA) program on Disaster Risk Reduction for the first time in her life. She stays in the permanent shelter provided to her tsunami-affected family of 7 members by the A & N Administration in her village at Car Nicobar, one of the worst affected islands during the catastrophe of 26^th December, 2004 in the archipelago of A & N Islands.

Sabrina Jack, Small Lapathy, Car Nicobar

When asked by Miss Anita Rebecca, the Village Level Animator (VLA) of WBVHA, who was anchoring the presentation program for Vulnerability Risk mapping and Resource Planning at Small Lapathy village during the month of December, 2008, “Which are the risky and safe zones in your village?”, Sabrina was one of the first amongst the participants to raise her hand. She answered, “The desolate area among the woods in the interiors where I’m not allowed to go to play is the risky area because a couple of people had committed suicide there.”

Miss Anita Rebecca, VLA, WBVHA, Car Nicobar

Sabrina was only six years old when the tsunami had struck her panam (world) and since then she has heard of umpteen number of similar DRR programs being organized by multifarious organizations in her village, but was never before allowed by her parents to partake in them. They told her it was all for the grown ups and not for the young kids like her.

Children participating in CLDRR activities at Small Lapathy

In fact, despite a surfeit of relief, rehabilitation and disaster preparedness initiatives taken up by various government and non government organizations during the past four years post tsunami, due to lack of sustenance for the DRR initiatives, the Nicobarese community was ignorant of the fact that children can and have to play a protagonist role in disaster risk reduction and preparedness initiatives for the sake of factual sustainability. WBVHA’s Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) project, supported by Save the Children-BRB, has succeeded in bringing the children out of the closet and has provided a unique platform for them to participate, learn and lead the community in the DRR initiatives for the far-reaching good of the entire archipelago. And their vivacious response has been overwhelmingly constructive.

Nicobarese playing Volleyball at Perka, Car Nicobar

The people of the buoyant Nicobarese tribe from the Nicobar group of islands are renowned for their uncomplicated civilization, unequalled hospitality, their swarming passion for sports and cultural activities. Christmas is the major festival celebrated with impeccable groundwork throughout the Nicobarese tribal area and Car Nicobar happens to be the hub of it all. The preparations begin as early as one and a half months before 25^th December every year, with the mighty Tribal Council overseeing all the activities to a T. Consequently, no externally initiated activity is entertained by anyone in the whole island during the period. Nevertheless, with the escalating awareness and the mounting gusto among the community, owing to the WBVHA’s CLDRR field team’s comprehensively participatory methodology, the community paid due heed to the urgency and the significance of DRR for themselves and their generations to come and, hence, cooperated with the team in carrying out the activities despite the stringent schedule of the Christmas Day preparations and also the alarmingly high rate of mortality in the island.

As the First Captain of Small Lapathy, Ms. Irena Mark said, “We can celebrate the holy festival of Christmas befittingly and rightfully, only when we secure ourselves and our future generations against the probable disasters and hence going hand in hand with the activities of WBVHA’s CLDRR team has to be an integral part of our Christmas Day preparations, as well. We will celebrate the holy Christmas with thanks to them.”

Dear friends, I’m leaving for Car Nicobar, again, this morning at 10 am for a fortnight to coordinate the program further. See you all when I’m back by 25^th January, 2009 or so. Until then, your Islander’s signing off, here. But, the Blog is very much there with you to devour it. Take care! All the best… Cheers!!!

NEWS - Fourth Anniversary of Tsunami in A & N Islands

Remembering the Scars of Tsunami…

Andaman & Nicobar Islands – 26^th December, 2004

Port Blair, December 26, 2008:

The Lt. Governor, Lt. Gen. (Retired) Bhopinder Singh today led the islanders in paying rich tributes to those who lost their lives in the mammoth earthquake and the catastrophic tsunami on 26^th December, 2004. At a solemn function held to commemorate the Fourth Anniversary of tsunami at the Tsunami Memorial at Water Sports Complex, the Lt. Governor laid wreath at the memorial and offered floral tributes.

The devastated Aberdeen Water Sports Complex; Port Blair on 26^th Dec., 2004

Others who paid floral tributes included the Member of Parliament (MP), Shri Manoranjan Bhakta, the Chief Secretary, Shri Vivek Rae, the Chairperson, Port Blair Municipal Council (PBMC), Smt. S. Selvi, State Social Welfare Board Chairperson, Smt. Shanta Laxman Singh, Councilors of PBMC, senior officers from Civil and Defence administration, senior citizens and school students.

A two minutes silence was observed and candles were lit as a mark of respect to the departed souls. An all religion prayer was also held on the occasion.

The destroyed Junglighat Jetty; Port Blair, on 26^th Dec., 2004

District Control Room:

A newly constructed District Control Room (DCR) for South Andaman District has come up adjacent to the District office at Port Blair, the capital. The Control Room building was inaugurated by the Chief Secretary, Shri Vivek Rae at a simple function held in the DCR premises on 26^th December, 2008. The Control Room has video conferencing facility and is connected with other such centers in the A & N Islands and the mainland India, as well. This facility enables communication with the rest of the country wherever NIC’s network facility exists.

Evacuation by Indian Navy at Hut Bay; Little Andaman

The setting up of the District Control Room is a part of the preparedness of the Administration for tackling any disaster type situation as well as in meeting any exigencies etc.

Nicobars Observe 4^th Tsunami Day:

Car Nicobar: The 4^th Tsunami Day was commemorated at Tsunami Memorial, Big Lapathy; Car Nicobar on 26^th December, 2008. Wreaths were laid on the memorial by the Deputy Commissioner (Nicobars), Superintendent of Police (Nicobars) and the Vice Chief Captain of Tribal Council, Car Nicobar. A large number of general public and Govt. officials assembled at the memorial and paid their respects to the departed souls. Similar functions were also held at Nancowry and Campbell Bay Sub-Division.

Aerial view of tsunami-struck Malacca; Car Nicobar on 26^th Dec., 2004

Campbell Bay (Great Nicobar) 2 days after tsunami - 28^th Dec. 2004

Homage by ANTCC:

The Andaman & Nicobar Territorial Congress Committee (ANTCC) also organized a function on the day at Gandhi Bhavan to pay homage to the tsunami victims of 26^th December, 2004 and offered Sarva Dharma Prayer for the solace of the victims’ souls. The function was organized in a bid to pay tributes to the tsunami victims and also in the memory of those killed during the terrorist attack on November 26^th, 2008 in Mumbai. The function was attended by the President, ANTCC, Shri Kuldeep Rai Sharma, the MP, Shri M R Bhakta and senior leaders of the Congress Party and of frontal organizations.

All the local dailies published from Port Blair carried a host of obituary messages by the relatives & friends of the Tsunami victims of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on the Fourth Anniversary of the unforgettable tragedy.

ANDAMAN & NICOBAR - FOUR YEARS AFTER TSUNAMI...

Hi, Friends! On 26^th December 2004, precisely four years ago, one of the world’s worst-known disasters – a Tsunami set off by an underwater earthquake – hit the ‘Floating Paradise on Earth’, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The southern part of the Islands, the Nicobars, took the major brunt of the earthquake and the killer tidal waves.

Junglighat Colony, Port Blair

Gandhi Chowk, Car Nicobar.

Hut Bay, Little Andaman

Car Nicobar

Restoration work at Car Nicobar after Tsunami

In the period following the disaster, the Islands received unprecedented attention and saw an influx of ‘outsiders’: both representatives of the administration as well as development workers from Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and elsewhere. Reconstruction and rehabilitation work started in full swing, and their results are not inconsequential. In fact, the Nicobar Islanders were one of the largest focuses of the tsunami rehabilitation efforts in Asia.

Sonia Gandhi with Tsunami victims at Car Nicobar

Four years on from the disaster, the results in some areas are reassuring. However, the pace of rehabilitation efforts seems to have slackened, according to the tribal communities, in certain areas. The Islands are located at considerable distances from each other and from Port Blair, the capital. Relief and recovery processes take long because access to the Nicobars require ‘landing permits’ or a ‘tribal area pass’. In ways more than one, the Nicobar Islands have a long way to go.

Funerals at Car Nicobar after Tsunami

Many in the administration argue that the situation is much better now than what it was on the islands before the tsunami. There are, for instance, two helicopters plying on a daily basis, covering the distance from Port Blair to the Nicobar Islands such as Car Nicobar, Campbell Bay, Kamorta, Teressa and also North Andamans. The quality and frequency of shipping services has improved, although marginally. If anything, there is greater resource allocation now and greater vigilance on the part of the community.

Murugan Temple at Malacca, Car Nicobar after Tsunami

This despondently points to the fact that it took a disaster to make the Government take note of the struggles of the people in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, especially the now-civilized tribal people of the buoyant Nicobarese community. The fate of the other aboriginal tribes of the Islands, viz. the Jarawas, the Onges, the Shompens, the Sentinalese and the Great Andamanese, remains unbeknown.

The Sentinalese, the most hostile of the Tribes in Andamans

A youth from the Shompen tribe of Great Nicobar

The heightened interactions with outsiders and systems after tsunami have been a compelling experience for most Nicobarese who are diffident by nature. The process of acculturation and integration is proving to be a painful one. The fact that monetary gains and greed determine social relations amongst ‘non-tribals’ and the realization that each person is out to make money (with the knowledge that the Nicobarese have received compensation monies) challenges local cultural norms in very deep and fundamental ways.

The olden days’ natives of Arong village, Car Nicobar

Well, friends! In most cases, the solutions are apparent and only require the will of the administration to be translated to reality. I, personally, am in the midst of things at Car Nicobar, as you already know, by way of the Child Led Disaster Risk Reduction (CLDRR) project of WBVHA supported by Save the Children – BRB and am coordinating a serious and sincere endeavor towards securing a better-planned and prepared future for the Nicobarese community with the support and assistance of the mighty Tribal Council of Car Nicobar headed by the Chief Captain, Mr. Aberdeen Blair and of course, Mr. Tapan Mandal, the farsighted Development Commissioner, A & N Administration. Hence, I shall keep you all posted about the journey ahead.