My boat was a few meters from the shore when the waves crashed

Boxing Day 2004.

I was on a ferry heading to Havelock Island in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands when the earthquake struck at 06:30 (01:00 GMT).

Known for its silvery sand and crystal clear blue waters, Radhanagar Beach was recently named Asia’s Best Beach by Time Magazine.

My best friend from college and her family had lived in Port Blair, the capital of the archipelago, for a decade and a half, but this was my first visit to the archipelago, and we arrived on Christmas Eve.

We planned to spend three days in Havelock, and in the morning we packed snacks and sandwiches, gathered the excited kids, and set off to catch the ferry from Phoenix Bay Jetty in Port Blair.

Not wanting to miss anything, I was standing on the front deck looking around when disaster struck.

Just as we left the port, the boat wobbled and suddenly the pier next to where we boarded collapsed and fell into the sea. Beyond that were gazebos and telephone poles.

It was an unusual sight. Dozens of people were standing next to me, staring open-mouthed.

Fortunately, there were no people on the pier at the time, so there were no casualties. The ship was scheduled to depart from there in half an hour, but the travelers had not yet arrived.

The ship’s crew told me it was an earthquake. We didn’t know it at the time, but the magnitude 9.1 earthquake was the third strongest ever recorded in the world and remains the largest and most destructive in Asia.

The outbreak occurred off the northwestern coast of Sumatra island in the Indian Ocean, triggering a devastating tsunami that killed an estimated 228,000 people in more than a dozen countries and caused extensive damage in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, and Thailand. Ta.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located just about 100 kilometers north of the epicenter, suffered extensive damage as a wall of water up to 15 meters (49 feet) high in some places hit land in just about 15 minutes. Ta.

The official death toll is 1,310, but more than 5,600 people are missing and presumed dead, and more than 7,000 islanders are thought to have died.

However, while on board the ship, we were unaware of the scale of the destruction around us. Cell phones did not work while on the water, and crew members provided only fragmentary information. We heard about the damage in Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives, and Nagapattinam, a coastal town in southern India.

However, there was no information about the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a group of hundreds of islands dotted in the Bay of Bengal, about 1,500 km (915 miles) east of mainland India.

Only 38 of them were inhabited. It was home to 400,000 people, including six hunter-gatherer groups who had lived isolated from the outside world for thousands of years.

The only way to reach the island was by ferry, but as we later learned, an estimated 94% of the piers in the area were damaged.

That was also the reason why we did not arrive at Havelock on December 26, 2004. We were told that the pier there was damaged and submerged in water.

So the ship turned around and headed home. For some time, there was speculation that the vessel would not be allowed to enter Port Blair for safety reasons and would have to spend the night at anchor.

This left passengers, most of them tourists looking forward to the sun and sand, feeling anxious.

After several hours of sailing in rough seas, we returned to Port Blair. Phoenix Bay was closed due to damage in the morning, so we were taken to Chatham, another port of Port Blair. The pier where we were dropped had large holes in some places.

On our way home, there were signs of devastation all around us. Buildings were reduced to rubble, a small overturned boat was parked in the middle of the street, and there were large cracks in the road. High waves flooded homes in low-lying areas, leaving thousands of people homeless.

I met a traumatized 9-year-old girl whose house filled with water and nearly drowned. One woman told me that she lost everything in her life in an instant.

Over the next three weeks, I reported extensively on the disaster and its impact on people.

It was the first time that a tsunami caused such damage to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the scale of the tragedy was overwhelming.

Salt water contaminated many freshwater sources and destroyed vast tracts of arable land. With the pier unavailable, it was difficult to get vital supplies to the island.

Authorities launched a large-scale relief operation. The army, navy, and air force were dispatched, but it took several days to reach all the islands.

Every day, Navy and Coast Guard ships brought scores of people left homeless by the tsunami from other islands to Port Blair, with schools and government buildings serving as temporary shelters.

They reported the misery of their homeland. Many people said they fled with only the clothes on their backs.

One of the women in Carnikova said that when the earthquake struck, waves started coming in from the sea and foamy water started spewing out from the ground.

She and hundreds of other people in the village waited for rescuers for 48 hours without food or water. She said it was a “miracle” that she and her 20-day-old baby survived.

Port Blair was hit by aftershocks almost every day, some so strong that there were rumors of a new tsunami, causing frightened people to seek higher ground.

A few days later, the Indian military flew journalists to Car Nicobar Island. The island is a flat, fertile island known for its enchanting beaches and home to a large Indian Air Force colony.

A murderous tsunami completely flattened the base. Here, the water level rose 12 meters, pulling the ground from under our feet while most people slept. A hundred people died here. More than half were Air Force officers and their families.

We visited Malacca and Kaakan villages on the island, which are also bearing the brunt of nature’s wrath, with residents forced to take shelter in roadside tents. Among them were families that were torn apart by the tsunami.

A grief-stricken young couple said they managed to save their five-month-old baby, but their other children, aged seven and 12, were swept away.

Surrounded by coconut palms on all sides, every house was reduced to rubble. Among the personal items scattered were clothes, school books, children’s shoes and a keyboard.

Remarkably, the only thing left intact was the bust of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the Indian nation, at the roundabout.

A senior military official told us that his team had recovered seven bodies that day, and we watched their mass cremation from afar.

At the air base, we watched as rescue workers pulled a woman’s body from the rubble.

Officials said for every body found in Car Nicobar, several others had been swept away by the waves without a trace.

Even after all these years, I still sometimes think about the day I took the ferry to Havelock.

What would have happened if the tremor had come a few minutes earlier?

And what would have happened if a wall of water hit the shore while I was waiting on the pier to catch the ferry?

On Boxing Day 2004, I had a close call. The thousands of people who died were not so lucky.

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