Dhanushkodi is on the tip of Pamban island, separated from the mainland by the Palk Strait. It shares the only land border between India and Sri Lanka, which is one of the smallest in the world at in length on a shoal in the Palk Strait.
Transport
The National Highway completed the 9.5-km-long road – 5 km from Mukuntharayar Chathiram to Dhanushkodi and 4.5 km from Tourists can visit by their own vehicle and end up with Pillars of Ashoka. Until 2016, Dhanushkodi was reachable either on foot along the seashore or in jeeps. In 2016, a road was completed from the village of Mukundarayar Chathiram. A metre gauge railway line connected Mandapam on mainland India to Dhanushkodi. Boat mail express ran from Chennai Egmore to Dhanushkodi till 1964 when the metre-gauge branch line from Pamban to Dhanushkodi was destroyed during the 1964 Dhanushkodi cyclone. In 2003, Southern Railway sent a project report to Ministry of Railways for re-laying a railway line to Dhanushkodi from Rameswaram. The planning commission looked into the possibility of a new railway line between Dhanushkodi and Rameswaram in 2010.
1964 cyclone
The area around Ramehswaram is prone to high-intensity geomorphic activity. A scientific study conducted by the Geological Survey of India indicated that the southern part of Dhanushkodi facing the Gulf of Mannar sank by almost in 1948 and 1949, due to vertical tectonic movement of land parallel to the coastline. As a result of this, a patch of land of about in width, stretching from north to south, submerged under the sea. On 17 December 1964, a depression formed at 5°N 93°E in the South Andaman Sea. On 19 December, it intensified into a cyclonic storm. After 21 December 1964, it moved westwards, almost in a straight line, at the rate of per day. On 22 December, it crossed Vavunia in Sri Lanka and made landfall at Dhanushkodi on the night of 22–23 December 1964. Estimated wind velocity was and tidal waves were high. An estimated 1,800 people died in the cyclonic storm on 22 December including 115 passengers on board the Pamban-Dhanushkodi passenger train. The entire town was marooned and the Government of Madras declared Dhanushkodi as a ghost town, unfit for living. In December 2004, around the 40th anniversary of the deadly cyclone, the sea around Dhanushkodi receded about from the coastline, briefly exposing the submerged part of the town before massive tsunami waves struck the coast.
