Tsunami of 2004 in India - Essay Example

The constant anticlockwise rotation of the Australian plate over the centuries has exerted a lot of stress upon the Indian plate’s segment in the south. While the Australian plate has shown a counterclockwise movement, the Indian tectonic plate has shown an equally uninterrupted movement in the north-east direction. The Indian tectonic plate joined the Eurasian tectonic plate to develop a whole range of mountains known as the Himalayas. It is because of the very displacement and collision with the Australian and the Eurasian tectonic plates that the eastern boundary of the Indian plate is now characterized by excessive faults and the probability of occurrence of earthquakes over there is dangerously high.

Andaman Sea is one of those areas that have been the most active with respect to earthquakes in the past. The result on December 26 was a rupture the USGS estimates was more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) long, displacing the seafloor above the rupture by perhaps 10 yards (about 10 meters) horizontally and several yards vertically. That doesn't sound like much, but the trillions of tons of rock that were moved along hundreds of miles caused the planet to shudder with the largest magnitude earthquake in 40 years.

(National Geographic News). India had had one of the most disastrous earthquakes in its whole history on 26 December 2004 in which, 11000 people lost their lives and more then 5000 people got lost and were presumed to be dead. Number of Indians that were displaced by the tsunami was more than 380000. The earthquake caused so panic that (The World Bank) estimated the cost of reconstruction to go up to $1.2 billion. Areas that underwent maximum destruction included but were not limited to the Nicobar Islands and Andaman.

These Indian territories in the Indian Ocean experienced numerous aftershocks after the occurrence of tsunami for many days. The Territory Police Chief S. B. Deol said that the ratio of dead or injured people to safe people as a result of the tsunami was 1:5 (The Times of India). One of the most fundamental reasons of increased damage and destruction in the islands of Car Nicobar and Great Nicobar in comparison to other regions was their general flatness. Numerous small islands that were located in the Nicobars have altogether disappeared while many like Trinket have been altered in their shape.

Trinket, itself was broken up into two halves. The saltwater brought by the tsunami in the islands has ruined the farms in those places and many sources of freshwater have now become extinct. Chowra Island with the population of 1500 people saw a 66.66 per cent loss of inhabitants as a result of the tsunami. The submersion of tsunami waves with the local air base on Car Nicobar caused the death of 100 Indian Air Force personnel along with their families. In order to meet the challenges that it was exposed to because of the occurrence of the earthquake, the government of India assessed the damage with the mutual help of the World Bank, United Nations and the Asian Development Bank.

The joint team including representatives of each of the three agencies conducted an in-depth analysis of the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of the tsunami as requested by the Indian government. States which were particularly analyzed for the effects of tsunami were Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Using the results of the comprehensive research, the government o