Comments on: North Sentinel Island

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:24:25 +0000

i was gonna say there was a ship wreaked but looks like ppl did lol

By: john

john — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:18:51 +0000

Indeed there is. For those interested, here is a link:

Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

By: Bec

Bec — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:38:51 +0000

I’m probably the last to know, but there’s a ship wrecked on the north-west of the island.

By: john

john — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:07:43 +0000

Hopefully missionaries don’t decide that these people are savages who need to be saved. Too many indiginious cultures have been perminantly altered already.

By: Narayanan

Narayanan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:51:18 +0000

http://www.andaman.org/mapstsunami/tsunami.htm

Check out this site. It has a good ‘before’ and ‘after’ photograph.

By: Shawnzy

Shawnzy — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:02:42 +0000

Reef dried up into a nice Beach… time to give up the life of a fisherman and open a Beach front Casino Resort… but seriously has no one gone in to see if these people are ok? fly-bys can only tell you so much

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:44:55 +0000

Doug,

If you read the article associated with the second image you will see it is a lot more significant than the tide being out (permanently)

[quote]
The formerly submerged coral reefs that ring North Sentinel Island are now exposed to the surface, as the entire North Andamans group has experienced tectonic uplift. Circumstances were reversed to the south in the South Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where large land areas were submerged down to between one and four metres in depth.

The international collaborative programme CORDIO (Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean) estimates that these uplifted North Sentinel Island reefs are unlikely to survive, as either they are positioned too high for high tide to reach them or submerged too shallowly to tolerate the increased intensity of sunlight.
…
The islanders would typically have been fishing when the tsunami struck. However post-tsunami surveys of North Sentinel Island suggest the tribe survived the disaster intact, perhaps retreating from the shore well before the waves hit.

It is possible that the Sentinelese are now suffering from the loss of their shallow water fishing grounds, with lagoons now vanished on all but the east side of North Sentinel Island: the shallow bluish water can be clearly seen.
[/quote]

By: Keith T.

Keith T. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:33:33 +0000

As a member of Survival International, I’m obliged to point out that while the Sentinelese are probably the most remote and insular uncontacted tribe, they are not the only one. There remain uncontacted tribes for example in the Amazon rainforest and Andes mountains as well as other islands in Oceania.

http://www.survival-international.org/

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:20:03 +0000

And keep it that way. They’re probably better off without us. It’ll be interesting if they eventually send out an explorer but until then leave them be.

By: RobK

RobK — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:45:01 +0000

Doug – it’s not just a case of the tide being out. In the “after” image, the reefs are actually exposed above the water line, which was not the case before the tsunami.

See this page at the NASA JPL site: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02435

which compares before and after images:

The tide was 30 plus or minus 14 centimeters lower in the pre-earthquake image (acquired November 21, 2000) than in the post-earthquake image (acquired February 20, 2005), requiring a minimum of 30 centimeters of uplift at this locality. Observations from an Indian Coast Guard helicopter on the northwest coast of the island suggest that the actual uplift is on the order of 1 to 2 meters at this site.

(emphasis added)