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Tropical storm off Myanmar coast sweeps reefs in Ritchie’s Archipelago, Andaman

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Relation http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/9282/
 
Title Tropical storm off Myanmar coast sweeps reefs in Ritchie’s
Archipelago, Andaman
 
Creator Krishnan, P
George, Grinson
Vikas, N
Titus, Immanuel
Goutham Bharathi, M P
Anand, A
Vinod Kumar, K
Senthil Kumar, S
 
Subject Coral Reefs
 
Description The reefs in some islands of Andaman and
Nicobar suffered severe damage following a tropical
storm in the Bay of Bengal off Myanmar coast during
13–17 March 2011. Surveys were conducted at eight
sites in Andaman, of which five were located in the
Ritchie’s Archipelago where maximum wind speeds
of 11 ms-1 was observed; and three around Port Blair
which lay on the leeward side of the storm and had not
experienced wind speeds of more than 9 ms-1. Corals
in the shallow inshore reefs were broken and dislodged
by the thrust of the waves. Significant damage
in the deeper regions and offshore reefs were caused
by the settlement of debris and sand brought down
from the shallower regions. The fragile branching
corals (Acropora sp.) were reduced to rubbles and
the larger boulder corals (Porites sp.) were toppled
over or scarred by falling debris. The reefs on the
windward side and directly in the path of the storm
winds were the worst affected. The investigation exposes
the vulnerability of the reefs in Andaman to the
oceanographic features which generally remain unnoticed
unless the damage is caused to the coastal
habitats.
 
Publisher Kluwer
 
Date 2012
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/9282/1/63.pdf
Krishnan, P and George, Grinson and Vikas, N and Titus, Immanuel and Goutham Bharathi, M P and Anand, A and Vinod Kumar, K and Senthil Kumar, S (2012) Tropical storm off Myanmar coast sweeps reefs in Ritchie’s Archipelago, Andaman. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. pp. 1-12.