Sunday, January 9 2005 18:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Port Blair: The process of the reconstruction of India's strategic Defence installations in Andaman and Nicobar islands has already started with a Defence team arriving in Port Blair to assess the extent of damages to these installations by tsunami and work out plans for reconstruction and some relocation to avoid damages from tsunami - like disasters in future.

A six-member integrated Defence team has arrived in Port Blair a few days back to assess the extent of damage to the Defence installations in the island by the December 26 tsunami and chalk out plans for the rebuilding of these important installations, Defence sources said.

A member of crucial Defence installations in the southern parts of the group of islands mainly in Cambell Bay and Car Nicobar islands have been totally destroyed by tsunami waves.

Despite the massive destruction of the Defence installations in Port Blair and also heavy casualties suffered by the armed forces, the Defence personnel operating in these parts of India strongly ruled out any possibility of shifting these installations from Port Blair to the mainland due to their strategic importance.

''There is no question of shifting the Crnic Airbase due to its strategic importance,'' Air Commodore K K Vijay Kumar head of Air Force Command at the Andaman and Nicobar islands told reporters in Port Blair today (Jan 9, 2005).