Day after: white cloth, candles on Car Nicobar islands of death

For, much of the IAF base has been pushed off the map by the sea and along with it, have perished over 100 personnel including six officers and their families—of the total base strength of 1700.

The Car Nicobar base, the operational heart of the Andamans and Nicobar Command, sits on the mouth of strategic Malacca Straits, which accounts for 52 per cent of world cargo and is the second-most busy shipping lane in the world.

Today, the entire coastline around it is strewn with trees snapped like twigs. Huddled survivors are so traumatised that even the slightest movement of wind or wave makes them run out into the open from the Air Force station hangars doubling up as shelters.

This was a plum posting, says Group Captain and Station Commander V Bandopadhyaya. ‘‘The officers and men wanted to stay here, wilfully.’’ Because the picture-postcard Air Force colony was drawn along the coastline, dotted with elegant two-storeyed bungalows. The sea was barely 200 m away, the front yard almost a private beach—which proved lethal when the waves struck.

Most of these houses have been flattened. In many spots, even debris is missing, the house swallowed up whole.

Standing amid the debris, Wing Commander P Maheshwar counts himself lucky—he lost everything but has his wife and child.

‘‘The night before, we had a Christmas party and when the earthquake hit, we were scared but took it in the right spirit. Every family rushed out of their homes and began to assemble together. One of us even began filming the chaos on his handycam saying it will be precious visual evidence for posterity. Suddenly, I saw the water level rise and that officer (the one with the handycam) suddenly vanished.’’ Captain Maheshwar stops, his eyes lock on a metal frame stuck on a tree branch about 20 feet from the ground.

‘‘That looks like my refrigerator,’’ he says, under his breath. ‘‘The skeleton of my car is lying there,’’ he points. ‘‘Every belonging of my 12 years of married life has been wiped out.’’ Except, his family, of course, which Maheshwar says he can’t explain other than saying it must be a miracle.

Not for six officers and their families, including several squadron leaders, the Met officer and the doctor of the Air Force station—all among the 102 who have been killed.

The waves hammered the coast for over two hours and once the water receded, the bodies of 23 IAF personnel were found strewn on the tarmac. Two more were retrieved from the debris, another 77 believed to have been sucked into the sea by the retreating waves.

The tarmac was the safe haven here. Being the highest point in the station. it stuck out, eyewitnesses said, amid the waves like the ‘‘back of a giant tortoise in the sea.’’ Most of those who could clamber onto it were saved.

The Mi-8 choppers were safe but the top floor of the three-storeyed Air Traffic Control was sliced off from the main structure, so neatly that it looks as if a giant crane ripped off the top floor and placed it at a distance.

The neighbouring village of Malacca has been wiped out, most of the other half a dozen villages here are still inaccessible. This was why the toll could rise alarmingly, Lt Governor Ram Kapse told visiting Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Sonia Gandhi when they arrived here this afternoon.

Commander in Chief B S Thakur said that several sorties were carried out right through the day with over 430 people being evacuated from Car Nicobar. About 70 of them were brought to the Naval Hospital in Port Blair.

Building the base back is a long haul—but a sure one. For, more than 114 supertankers carrying 9.5 billion oil barrels for South Asian markets traverse through this 10 degree channel route that bisects the Andamans Islands and the Great Nicobar Island.

Besides handling the reconnaissance and surveillance activities, the Car Nicobar base has a major role in tracking down gun-runners and narco-traffickers that push in arms and drugs to India’s north-east through the Cox’s Bazaar and Chittagong route in Bangladesh.

The runway of Car Nicobar base was extended to handle fighter operations in 2001 after the government cleared the Andamans and Nicobar tri-service command. Since then, the IAF has been conducting fighter exercises involving Jaguars and Su-30s twice a year—one was scheduled for next month.

Apart from the Car Nicobar base, the Indian Navy has 12 amphibious landing ships and fast attack crafts at the Port Blair harbour. Top Navy officials said that none of the ships were damaged in the tsunami as they were pushed to mid-stream the moment the first wave came and hit Port Blair. The state-of-the-art Thomson CSF radar that monitors traffic north of Landfall Islands is safe but the building housing the equipment has developed cracks.