...continued southward into increasingly damaged coastal areas. The second group flew to Port Blair in the Andaman Islands east of India, in the Bay of Bengal, to inspect damaged port facilities closer to the earthquake’s epicenter.

Pondicherry to Nagapattnam Coast

The nature of the damage along the east coast ranged from total devastation of coastal villages to minor effects on regional lifelines. Typically, any major damage to water supplies, power systems, or transportation networks was localized and contained within the coastal villages. Life lines servicing larger towns and spanning regions remained essentially intact, primarily due to their distance from the sea. Within the villages, however, the destruction of lifelines was complete.

Coastal village in Nagapattnam that suffered significant losses of lives and dwellings.(Photo by ASCE)

The wave heights and peak run-up levels increased significantly from Pondicherry southward, finally tapering off south of Nagapattnam. The coast there was effectively sheltered on the leeward side of Sri Lanka. The district of Nagapattnam suffered the highest number of casualties of any district in India. Fishermen and their families living in seaside villages were the group most affected. The effects of the stronger tsunami in Nagapattnam were compounded by the relatively high population density of the district’s villages.

Between Pondicherry and Nagapattnam, the team visited three population centers to observe the various types and degrees of damage. In Cuddalore, the northernmost of the three areas, damage was severe, but limited to the seaside villages and unprotected structures at a local recreational beach. A bridge and small-craft port in an inland water passage were littered with boats forced upstream by the tsunami, but we observed no structural damage.

In Karaikal (approximately 30 km north of Nagapattnam), villages were destroyed, and a pedestal supporting the primary bridge in town collapsed. The Indian Army installed a Bailey bridge to span the collapsed pedestal until permanent repairs can be made. Just south of Karaikal, the team visited a local power plant. We confirmed that within the Nagappatnam and Cuddalore districts, the tsunami had affected power distribution lines and transformers , but not the generation points typically. In addition, just north of Nagapattnam in Nagore, the team inspected a major modern oil tanker unloading pier. Although the pier is sited directly on the Bay on Bengal, no damage was observed.

In Nagapattnam proper, the team inspected two coastal villages that had lost 50 to 75 percent of their dwellings, and had lost all water and power services. The loss of life in these villages was substantial, and probably could have been reduced with some basic changes in the layout of dwellings and paths, facilitating escape to higher or distant ground. The team mapped out one of the villages with an eye toward enabling us to make some recommendations about community planning alternatives as the villages are rebuilt. While the seemingly obvious recommendation is to limit village development adjacent to the sea, in a country and region where small-scale fishing is a primary way of life, such a recommendation is not a viable option; the task thus becomes finding ways to minimize loss of life for such communities in the future.

The following are some general non-engineering observations of the damaged areas:

  • 1) Most of the area’s modern facilities, industrial facilities, and regional lifelines were not significantly damaged by the tsunami. The physical devastation–and, more importantly, the loss of life–occurred mostly in the coastal fishing villages.
  • 2) Relief organizations and the Indian government have done an extremely commendable job of restoring water and power services to the damaged villages. Some things still require attention however, most notably sewer/septic services, reconstruction of dwellings and restoration of a means of livelihood. Regarding the latter, several organizations have begun restoring fishing vessels, but the fishermen still lack nets, fuel and engines to utilize the restored vessels.
  • 3) As most major lifelines remained intact outside of the coastal villages, our observations and recommendations are, and will be focused more, on community planning, emergency response, and related issues rather than on "technical" engineering issues, but such recommendations will possibly be even more valuable to people of the regions that we visited than would any technical advice we could provide.
  • 4) The spirits of the villagers were surprisingly high, despite the disaster that had taken place. Visiting and speaking with fishermen and their families was a truly moving experience, and we could all learn a lot from their resilience.

David Ames is a Senior Engineer/Project Engineer
with Han-Padron and Associates and ASCE's India team leader