Marketable as a deep-draft port strategically positioned to outpace regional competitors, the proposal to build an International Container Transhipment Port (ICTP), an international airport, a power plant, and a 160-square-kilometre township on Great Nicobar Island is fraught with logistical, strategic, and economic contradictions that call its feasibility into question. With an investment of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore (about 10 billion US dollars), the project, located on the southeastern coast of the island, which includes Galathea National Park, is a reckless gamble that ignores the region’s ecological vulnerability, tectonic fragility and strategic contradictions.In essence, this is not merely a development project; it is a plan to convert a globally significant biosphere reserve – a haven of unique biodiversity – into a sprawling commercial hub. The project will occupy approximately 166.1 square kilometres of the island, with forest diversion alone accounting for 130.75 square kilometres. Government estimates suggest that around 18.65 lakh trees stand in the area, of which up to 7.11 lakh are likely to be felled in phases.A geological folly – not an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’Referred to by the votaries of the project as India’s “Natural Aircraft Carrier” and “Unsinkable Carrier”, Great Nicobar, a 1045 sq km landmass) lies in one of the world’s most tectonically active zones – a profound geological risk that the project has failed to take seriously. The island is perilously close to Banda Aceh in Indonesia, the epicentre of the catastrophic 2004 magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake, which struck off the west coast of Sumatra, where the eastern part of the Indian Plate slides beneath Southeast Asia.That earthquake occurred at a depth of 15-20 kilometres, rupturing more than 1,200 kilometres of the plate boundary and displacing trillions of tons of rock beneath the sea. This movement displaced many more trillions of tons of water, generating a massive tsunami. Great Nicobar, located closer to the epicentre than many other affected areas, experienced sudden coseismic subsidence of three to four metres. This was not an anomaly but a manifestation of an ongoing, predictable tectonic cycle.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Our own studies, published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (Rajendran, C.P. et al., 2007, doi: 10.1785/0120050630) and Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors (PEPI; Paul, J. and Rajendran, C.P., 2015, doi: 10.1016/j.pepi.2015.08.006), show that the region follows a relentless pattern of strain build-up and release. Over the years, our GPS data indicate the land was slowly uplifting as tectonic strain accumulated beneath the surface. This piled-up stress is released during major earthquakes, causing the land to subside abruptly. Now that the Andaman-Nicobar region has entered an inter-seismic period, the land and ocean floor are slowly rising again until the next major earthquake.The PEPI paper notes that GPS and tide gauge data showed the area had already begun subsiding between 2003 and 2004 – before the December earthquake. Scientists detected a possible precursory deformation signal, including vertical subsidence and horizontal reorientation. While the region was rising during the inter-seismic period, the area started sinking one to two years before the earthquake, at rates accelerating from 70 mm per year to 130 mm per year just four months before the event. This subsidence can be explained by a 1.5-metre slip on the upper fault portion over 6–12 months preceding the great earthquake. Tide gauge measurements and visual observations of emerging nearshore corals 15 months before the event further support these findings.Unlike the stable geology of Singapore or Hong Kong, the Great Nicobar region undergoes cyclical movements of slow uplift and sudden subsidence. The integrity of a port, an airport, or a city cannot be guaranteed on land that repeatedly drops by several metres in a few seconds. To build large-scale, permanent infrastructure on such unstable ground is to gamble billions on the illusion that engineering can outwit plate tectonics.This became apparent with the damaging impact on port infrastructure in Port Blair, South Andaman, during the 2004 earthquake/tsunami. Key jetties at the Phoenix Bay harbour were closed due to structural damage, forcing operations to relocate temporarily to the Chatham jetty. Critical wharves and jetties suffered significant structural failures. The damage was largely caused by pounding between deck slabs, short-column effects in supporting piles, and soil liquefaction. Some jetties developed gaping holes or were submerged.The area around Port Blair subsided by about one meter into the ocean during the earthquake, causing high tides to inundate low-lying coastal roads and neighbourhoods. Because of the compromised jetties, inter-island ferries and mainland ships could not dock normally. Ships were rerouted to alternate docks (such as Chatham) and operated severely over-capacity, leading to passenger congestion and chaos at the docks.A non-linear mode of recurrence of the 2004-type earthquakesOur geological studies of the long-term, 6000-yr record of mega-earthquakes and tsunamis in the Andaman-Nicobar Islands have revealed that the recurrence of 2004-type events follows a non-linear regime that transitions into a distinct interval of temporarily clustered events. For the nine events identified in the study, the corresponding eight inter-event periods range from 220 ± 185 to 1605 ± 245 years, highlighting the variability of event occurrences. A fundamental question about hazard estimation in the Andaman-Sumatra region is whether the last sequence of events, ending with the 2004 earthquake, is part of an ongoing cluster or marks the end of that cycle. These distinct opposing scenarios may lead to variable estimates of mega-earthquake probabilities . Temporally variable recurrence regimes of mega-tsunamis in the 6500 years prior to the 2004 Indian Ocean event. Marine Geology, 460, 107051).Also read: Gram Sabha that Cleared Great Nicobar Island Project Didn’t Meet 50% QuorumFurthermore, scientific studies confirm that the megathrust fault abutting the Sumatra-Andaman plate boundary is segmented, with each segment capable of generating great earthquakes independently. The historical record reveals a pattern of major seismic events affecting the region, including: the 1861 Nias-Simeulue earthquake (M ~8.5), the 1881 Nicobar Islands earthquake (M 7.9), the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake (M 9.2–9.3), and the 2007 Sumatra earthquake (M 8.4).This cyclical pattern of “slow uplift and sudden subsidence” along an active subduction zone inherently destabilises engineered structures along the Island coast over the long term, making the integrity of a port, airport, and city fundamentally untenable. The impact will be more destructive on Great Nicobar than on the Andaman part of the island chain, as it is closer to the epicentres of high-magnitude earthquakes. Situated at the precise intersection of variable sea-level rise and sinking land, the Great Nicobar project is not merely ecologically destructive or culturally erosive for the indigenous populations – it is geologically impossible. Rear Admiral (Retd.) Sudhir Pillai calls the Great Nicobar project a “forward liability,” as it is built on a seismically active island in one of the world’s most hazardous geological zones – a strategic risk as much as an engineering one. Underestimating such tectonic hazards raises questions about projecting the project as a military requirement, which is a ruse for developing the region as a commercial hub.Military base – a pretext for urbanisation?The argument that the Great Nicobar project is important as an advanced maritime surveillance post collapses when it is also envisaged as a major commercial and tourism hub with an expected exponential increase in population. Wouldn’t an international tourism hub and commercial centre threaten the security of the military base envisaged there? Geopolitical analyst Sushant Singh explains that the government is using national security to justify irreversible ecological damage and massive commercial expansion, despite defence needs requiring far less destruction. In an article titled “The Security Fiction Behind the Great Nicobar Project,” he writes: “The state speaks in the language of maritime competition and national interest, but the project includes a large port, airport, township, and energy infrastructure that would inevitably create opportunities for logistics, construction, land value appreciation, and long-term real estate development. Indian mega-projects often travel under mixed labels because once the security frame is attached, scrutiny becomes harder.”Any questionable infrastructure project now only needs to be framed as “strategically important” to receive judicial deference, regardless of its ecological cost and tectonic vulnerability. This draws a direct and chilling parallel to the so-called development programmes in the Himalayan states.Also read: Cleared Files, Shrinking Forests: Who Pays the Price for Modi Govt’s Corporate Tilt?The Supreme Court’s concurrence with the Char Dham road-widening project in seismically vulnerable Uttarakhand – which accelerated disasters and destroyed mountain ecosystems – was also secured on the same spurious excuse of national security. Interestingly, as Sushant Singh writes, the government’s readiness to relax security protocols in Khavda, Gujarat, to establish a renewable energy park funded by the Adani Group on the India-Pakistan border – despite military objections – exposes its double standards, insofar as the national security argument is applied selectively.If the Union government is sincere about developing the southernmost naval base under the Andaman and Nicobar military command, why not focus on INS Baaz – a base that already exists in Campbell Bay on Great Nicobar Island? Commissioned in 2012, the Navy’s expansion proposal has been awaiting approval for years. This could be carried out within permissible limits with minimal built structures, without disturbing environmentally sensitive areas.Given that the Andaman Sea is among the most pristine maritime environments in Asia, voices from ASEAN countries increasingly aspire for India to play a more responsible role, one where strategic ambition vis-à-vis China does not overwhelm environmental justice. India should take a leading role in bringing together all countries in the region to promote environmental transparency and reduce the risks of militarisation. The world is already witnessing how unresolved competition between nations has reduced the shipping channels into zones of militarisation. We must not allow the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea to fall into the trap of becoming a theatre of great power rivalry. Preserving Great Nicobar’s pristine environment is vital for future generations.C.P. Rajendran is a geoscientist and a communicator on science, politics, environment and education and has done studies on the region.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.