Dr. Dinesh
26th December 2004 was my wife Kanika’s birthday. She wanted to spend the day at Wandoor Beach, but I changed the plan to Baratang to see the limestone caves, as my brother Suresh was working there on deputation with the State Bank of India. Fate, however, had other plans.
We were travelling towards Baratang by bus when, a massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale struck off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The epicentre was 30 kilometres under the seabed and approximately 250 kilometres south to south-west of Banda Aceh . The earthquake generated a series of towering waves which could travel at around 80 km/hr in shallow water, with the largest impact felt in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. In the nine hours following the earthquake, 14 aftershocks with magnitudes between 5.7 and 7.3 occurred along the arc from Sumatra towards Nicobar and the Andaman Islands. Our bus shook uncontrollably, I got down despite my wife’s protests and saw areca nut and coconut trees swaying wildly, with mud sliding down like a landslide. Earlier in 2004, during a visit to Singapore, I had purchased a Sony Handycam (those days smart phones were not there) and instinctively I began recording what was unfolding around us. Soon after, the journey resumed, but the roads ahead were scarred with deep cracks, so deep that their end could not be seen. Unaware of the danger, I even stood astride some of these cracks, trying to gauge their depth. On the way to Middle Strait jetty there were deep cracks on the road; the driver had difficulty negotiating.
At Middle Strait Jetty, confusion reigned. I had nearly boarded the ferry when authorities suddenly ordered all vessels to move away from the jetty. We were sitting there at the jetty when the waves arrived; the second one was particularly terrifying. Fish could be seen jumping near the mangroves, though initially there was no visible destruction due to mangroves. Moments later, seawater rushed in and completely submerged the Middle Strait Jetty in front of our eyes. An engineer of ALHW accompanying us had just assured that the jetty was structurally safe; nature proved otherwise within seconds.
We ran to higher ground as water flooded the nearby canteen. Utensils, soft drink bottles, freshly prepared food, cockroaches and centipedes floated past us, small details that made the disaster terrifyingly real. Police radio operators struggled to assess the rapidly evolving situation over walkie-talkies, and all movement towards Baratang was halted. At one point, I was asked to briefly explain the ground situation to a senior police official in Port Blair while he held the walkie-talkie.
As we returned towards Port Blair, the devastation became clearer, particularly in the Chouldhari area. Roads disappeared under water. Saltwater entered the bus. Big water tanks floated in fields as residents swam desperately to retrieve them. A lady travelling with us had a small transistor radio, which confirmed what we feared …a tsunami had struck, devastating Sri Lanka and large parts of the Indian Ocean region.
The word “tsunami” immediately reminded me of a Japanese folk tale lesson I had read during my school days at Carmel School, about Hamaguchi, a respected village elder, who saved villagers by lighting a hay stack and drawing them away from the shore to higher ground. That childhood lesson suddenly felt painfully relevant.
We reached Port Blair by evening. Our wooden house, built in the 1970s, stood intact, though the raised water tank outside had mysteriously emptied during the quake. My Dental Clinic at Golghar, however, had not been as fortunate, equipment lay scattered, decorative items I had brought from Sri Lanka earlier in 2004 were shattered, and the building itself had shifted and cracked, with a gap of nearly four to five inches in front.
At Marina Park, the scale of destruction was unimaginable. Boats from Aberdeen Jetty had been hurled near the Gymkhana Stadium. Walkway tiles were ripped apart, and large sections of the promenade were pushed back towards the JNRM College gate. Water surged through areas near Ramakrishna Mission. Port Blair was spared even greater damage largely because Ross Island absorbed much of the impact. At fisheries jetty / marine jetty , big boats were on the jetty due to impact of strong waves. Many parked vehicles near the jetty got drowned.
The first officially reported death in Port Blair was from Corbyn’s Cove Beach, where a fisherman near the shore was swept away. In the days that followed, aerial surveys by defence helicopters documented widespread destruction across several islands. Stories of survival and loss emerged, among them, a young woman named Jessy was found alive nearly 45 days after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the remote island of Pillopanja in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. When the waves struck, she fled into the forests for safety. She survived by foraging for wild jackfruit and coconuts and collecting small amounts of fresh water. When rescued, she was severely weakened, underweight, and covered with mosquito bites. She was taken to Campbell Bay, Great Nicobar Island for urgent medical treatment; her husband and one-year-old child were presumed dead.
Another tragic incident involved a group of my four professional colleagues, Gynaecologist and Medical Specialists, from Pune who had gone to Campbell Bay near Galathea in Great Nicobar. They were taking video of tsunami climbing on to a tree, during first wave, they were swept away during the second wave. A local Karen guide who accompanied them narrowly escaped and, after walking barefoot from Galathia for nearly fifteen days, reached Campbell Bay and was air lifted to INHS Dhanvantari, Port Blair, where I later met him. He narrated how the doctors were separated and likely perished during the waves.
In the days that followed, relief camps sprang up in Nirmala Higher Secondary School, School Line School and Haddo School across the town. Having worked earlier at Civil Hospital, Car Nicobar, I had many Nicobari friends who had lost everything except the clothes they wore. With whatever little we could gather, clothes, bedsheets, milk powder and snacks, my family and I distributed relief supplies across affected areas using our Maruti 800 car.
There was a huge demand for children’s clothes; we even gave away most of my son’s clothes and later had to buy new ones for him!!!
For several months after the tsunami, I treated many patients free of cost at my dental clinic, driven by a deep attachment to the Nicobari community. As part of post-tsunami rehabilitation, I also conducted free dental camps in association with a Switzerland-based NGO at Chunnabatta, and organised several other free dental camps in and around Port Blair using our own resources. My family members actively participated, often spending sundays serving those in need. We used to visit G.B. Pant Hospital in the evening hours to help a few patients injured during the earthquake.
In the aftermath, people gathered between the present Flag Point and the temple area after noticing something jutting out from the sea. Speculation spread quickly, some believed a new island had emerged, while others thought it was a rock formation. Around the same time, Star TV News was covering the area live, and an official requested my comment on camera. I clarified that it was only an accumulation of sand, not a newly formed island. My friends in Delhi later informed me that they had seen the interview live, and we spoke at length about the unfolding situation.
During this period, we also contemplated relocating to Kolkata, where my aunt Dr. R. Shyamala was a Dental Surgeon had a medical centre at Gariahat. We explored schools for my son, through her, though admission materialised only later. I had detailed discussions with my dental college mate, close friend and mentor Dr. V. Rangarajan, who advised me to remain calm and cautioned that starting a clinic from scratch in Chennai would be difficult when I already had an established practice in Port Blair.
Few months before Tsunami, Dr. V. Rangarajan, Dr. Padmanaban from Chennai, and Dr. Uday Vir Gandhi from Kolkata proposed conducting an IPS (Indian Prosthodontics Society) Conference in the Andamans. I took them to meet the then Chief Secretary, A & N Islands, who explained that such a large conference was not feasible due to limited infrastructure. There were only a couple of good hotels then, like Hotel Bay Island & Peerless, It was a blessing in disguise that it did not materialise in the Andamans. The conference was later held in Thailand and concluded just before the tsunami, with participants travelling onward to Malaysia. I later received a call on my speaker phone which I got from Malaysia early 2004( speaker phone was latest in the foreign market then) from Prof. Dr. V. Rangarajan, Prosthodontist while he was proceeding to Malaysia after the conference got over, asking, “Dinesh, are you alive?” then we spoke at length about tsunami experience and about just concluded dental conference at Thailand.
One moment at Nirmala School remains unforgettable. Children separated from their parents were asked to run around the ground. Suddenly, a mother broke through the crowd, caught her son mid-run and held him tightly, both crying uncontrollably. No words were needed.
Fear lingered for months. People slept outdoors, including professionals in areas like Dairy Farm, spending nights together on roadsides. Since our house was wooden, we slept in the living room with the front main door open for several days due to aftershocks. Rumours of another tsunami triggered panic even in elevated areas far from the sea like Bhatubasthi (CARI road) and Garacharma. Later proved to be hoaxes, even a heavy rain (like sounds of waves) those days created fear in every body’s mind, they reflected the deep trauma etched into every mind.
The tsunami caused structural damage to several jetties constructed by the Andaman Lakshadweep Harbour Works (ALHW) across the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. As I had recorded the inundation of the Middle Strait Jetty, the videographic evidence was later sought for official assessment. Based on the narration of the incident by the accompanying Assistant Engineer, ALHW, the footage was requested for review by the then Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways Shri T. R. Baalu. The recording was transferred from my Handycam to a CD and submitted accordingly.
In 2005, during a visit to Kolkata, my friends (Dr. Uday Mukherjee, Dr. Chitrita Gupta, Late Dr. Romit Mukherjee, Dr. Rahul Chatterjee, Dr. Biswajit Mandal, Dr. Rajib Ghoshal, Dr. Surangama, Dr.Prosenjit Banerjee, Dr. Swapan Purkait & Dr. Asif Shabbir) hosted a get-together at Crystal Chopsticks, where I narrated my experiences and was humorously treated as a “tsunami survivor.”
Many lives were lost around 230000 in about 14 countries. One of my relatives survived the first wave but returned home to retrieve valuables. The second wave took him and his children, an irreversible reminder of how unforgiving nature can be, as narrated by a survivor. Another friend of mine Dr. M. K. Das, working with ICMR and his family who was residing in Malacca, lost his wife and children in the tsunami. Mr. Jaganathan, BDO his family, who ran an STD booth near Malacca Jetty, Car Nicobar, were also presumed dead in the disaster.
Twenty years later, the memories remain sharp. Tsunami is no longer just a scientific term or a chapter in a textbook. It is a lived experience, one that taught us humility, resilience, and the fragile line between life and loss.
Author’s Note:
This column is based entirely on first-hand experiences (narrative based journalism) witnessed by the author and his family during the 26th December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. It is also written to help younger generations understand how a massive undersea earthquake triggered the tsunami, the sequence of events that followed, and the human, social and environmental consequences of one of the worst natural disasters in modern history.
E-mail dineshdentalclinic@gmail.com