Tsunami devastated coral reefs in Andman Islands

New Delhi, May 7 : Coral reefs, home to about 25 sea species, sufferred massive destruction by tsunami waves triggerred by the December 2004 earthquake in the India Ocean.

It is estimated that the Andman and Nicobar group of Islands lost about 23000 hecatres of reef after the killer waves hit the region, the Ministry of Forest and Environment has told a Parliamentary panel.

About 6, 740 hectares of reef in Andman Islands and 6,140 hectares of reef in the Nicobar Islands are now covered by sand, mud and debris.

The reefs of Car Nicobar, Comorta, Nacoway, Trinkat, Katchali, Tilakchang and Littel Nicobar have been totally lost, whereas the reefs of gulf of Mannar have been affected marginally.

The coral reefs sufferred two kind of damages. They were either completely eroded or covered by sand, mud, debris and other kind of harmful deposits.

Coral reef are rock-like structures built by corals which are about an inch-long ocean animals. Reefs are formed when young corals attach themselves to the limestone skeletons of dead ones and thus layers of skeletons build up over millions of years. Reefs are home to a quarter of all ocean species.

The Ministry was asked by the Parliamentary Standing on Environment and Forest to assess the damage after it found contradiction in the Report of the Department of Ocean Development.

The Department's four research vessels--Sagar Poorvi, Sagar Paschimi, Sagar Sampada and Sagar Kanya had been commissioned to undertake a detailed assessment of the destruction inflicted by tsunami.

However, the Standing Committee found that as per the annual report of the Department, coral reefs were severely affected, but the Secretray of the Department in his presentation before the committee maintained that by and large coral reefs were unaffected.

The Ministry thereafter initiated its own study in January last year. The study included damages to mangroves, coral reefs, coastal forests, coastal and marine biodiversity, coastal water and fresh water pollution, geomorphological changes based on satellite imagery.

The Standing Committee has asked the Ministry to draw up a future contingency plan in case of such a natural calamity afflicting the region again.

It felt that successful restoration of coral health required a more realistic and historically informed understanding of the ecology of near pristine condition of the reefs.

It requires a combination of methods retrospective analyses, modelling and intensive studies of the eco-system structure and function of the very few isolated reefs that have escaped substantial damage by Tsunami.

The Committee said a detailed mapping of coral stress tolerance was necessary to be assessed and mapped. The behaviour of coral reef fish was also needed to be assessed on a comparative basis in coral areas which are severely affected by Tsunami and areas which are less affected or not affected at all by tsunami, it said.

UNI