Subhra Priyadarshini Campbell Bay (Great Nicobar Island), , December 22, 2005 (PTI)

India has lost precious strategic land to the tsunami forever as large stretches in its southernmost tip, about 120 km from the Indonesian shores, remain underwater even an year into the mammoth natural disaster.

An aerial tour of the region confirmed what the local administration and combined defence forces of the Andaman and Nicobar Command have not officially admitted till now.

Just 125 km away from the epicentre of the earthquake that jolted the Indian Ocean region on December 26 last year, this was the first landmass hit by the waves in the North- West direction gulping about 20 km of land.

Water has not preceded from the region till now and the landmass has gone down by about a couple of kms under sea.

"It is for everyone to see. We lost huge areas elsewhere also. The tsunami has shrunk Campbell Bay too" is all a spokesperson of the Command would offer.

Indira Point, the most prominent landmark at the southermost tip of the Republic of India, is still submerged under water, with the famous red and white lighthouse, earlier on the shore, standing halfway in the sea.

Part of a huge stone bust of late prime minister Indira Gandhi, which was kept wrapped in polythene sheets and was to be installed at the tip, was retrieved from enormous amounts of tsunami debris recently, but it was broken waist down.

"This is where we were to have the bust. Here there was a very beautiful park named after Mrs. Gandhi," Comander Salil Mehta, met officer at the naval command said showing points on a stretch of azure sea as the four-seater Coast Guard Donear veers right on top of Indira Point.

And the blue-green stretch of water has created permanent patches across the nearly 45 sq. Km Great Nicobar group in surrounding hilly and undulating islets like Little Nicobar, Kondul and Pillomillow. Assistant Commissioner of Campbell Bay Vivek Pandey said, "As per the version of villagers in Chingen, about eight kilometers north of Indira Point, nearly 24 metre high waves hit in two stages and swept everything within reach. The water entered nearly 200 metres inside wherever it hit the landmass on the eastern coast." That village is still under water and a severe monsoon has aggravated matters in the island that saw around 1400 casualties in tsunami.

Of the 35 km stretch of Campbell Bay, only about four kilometers are navigable, said Major Kailash Nagarajan, overseeing the rehabilitation process in the island. "The rest is under water and approachable only by the sea route." The seas, he said, have been generally rough through the year and the water levels had hardly gone down.

People in the island have fond memories of Indira Point.

Like P L D Ray, the 88-tear old editor of Andaman Wave, who was a veteran journalist when union minister H K L Bhagat came here in 1985 to rename the southernmost tip as Indira Point from Pygmalion Point, the name it had been coferred by Danish settlers.

"I remember how Rajiv Gandhi came visiting the islands shortly after Mrs Gandhi's assassination and went right upto the tip of Campbell Bay. Later, we also attended a press meet of Mr Bhagat at the Raj Niwas in Port Blair of October 18, 1985 wehen he finally declared the renaming," he says.