Heavy tsunami damage in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India

All those dead trees that you see were killed by the ingress of tsunami waves inland. The water stayed on a swamped the inland forests, causing the dry land trees to suffer extensive damage and die off. Swamps were created as some of the water never returned to the coast and created permanent inland water bodies.

You can even see a single tree on an island that has now gone underwater but which stood over water prior to the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. Forget the island of Tuvalu (of .tv fame), right here in India, we are seeing land that has been reclaimed by the sea and no one seems to be talking about the impending calamity.

Also, see the freshly created sand bars from the tsunami wind's force. This could well become a beautiful beach some day but for now it hurts to see it, for it tells the story of a terrificly damaging tsunami that struck these islands that fateful day.

Beautiful aerial view of Andaman and Nicobar Island - an aerial view of the magical islands.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a group of islands at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, and are a Union Territory of India.

The territory is 150 km (93 mi) north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated from Thailand and Burma by the Andaman Sea. It comprises two island groups, the Andaman Islands and the Nicobar Islands, separated by the 10°N parallel, with the Andamans to the north of this latitude, and the Nicobars to the south. The Andaman Sea lies to the east and the Bay of Bengal to the west.

The territory's capital is the Andamanese town of Port Blair. The total land area of the territory is approximately 8,073 km2 (3,117 sq mi). The capital of Nicobar Islands is Car Nicobar. The islands host the Andaman and Nicobar Command, the only tri-service geographical command of the Indian Armed Forces.

Source :- Wikipedia

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of tens of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM / SR 1080i High Definition, Alexa, SR, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at rupindang @ gmail . com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.

The Indian Ocean - Bay of Bengal island of Car Nicobar as seen right after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami the sad anniversary of which takes place later this year. After the tsunami, Wilderness Films India exclusively flew over the island to get you this rare first-hand footage of the damage and destruction.

One can see the air-strip on Nicobar as our chopper takes off. The palm-fringed beaches stand silent, in mute testimony to the recent destruction. Large masses of water can still be seen marooned inland and along the estuaries, having destroyed large patches of rain forest on this pristine island.

This fantastic island is home to the endangered Narcondam Hornbill and the Nicobar Pigeon - birds that are seen nowhere else in the world!

Flying over the island's forest cover and the rain forest canopy, one comes across a forest road that is used to supply villages inland and was perhaps at one time used to move timber to sea.

What are those strange housing plots or platforms in the middle of the island? Is that some planned settlement that failed or an ill-hatched government housing project?

And in that one seamless shot, we reach the other end of the island of Car Nicobar, only to see more death and destruction from the terrible tsunami of south-east Asia. See broken roads and bridges and flooded estuaries and inland waterways.