MUMBAI: The Asian tsunami tradegy that occured on 26 December is now being tapped by scientists for a scientific documentary.

Discovery Channel and the BBC have joined as broadcast partners with an expedition of top scientists to explore the seabed site of the Asian tsunami.

In an attempt to understand the causes of 2004 tsunami, a media release states that the crew will send cameras deep into the abyss to witness first-hand the collision between the earth’s crustal plates. The team will provide scientific research with the aim to provide accurate warnings of when and where the next tsunami may hit.

The team comprises the world’s foremost scientific authorities, including seismologists, geophysicists, biologists, seabed visualisation experts and tsunami modellers.

The team will spend 17 days aboard the MV Performer, a deep-water research ship, in the Indian Ocean. Working with BAFTA award-winning production company, Darlow Smithson Productions, scientists will begin diving three miles to the sea floor off the Indonesian coast.

This expedition will be covered as a two-hour special programme, Journey to the Heart of the Tsunami and will air on Discovery Channel in India towards the end of this year.

Discovery Channel acting general manager and senior vice-president production Phil Fairclough states, “This ambitious exploration three miles below the Indian Ocean will provide hard scientific findings that will help scientists predict future tsunamis and therefore minimise the devastation and loss of life that resulted from the 2004 tsunami.

"It is our hope that Discovery Channel’s participation in these types of significant scientific endeavours will help to push science further into the future. Partners like Darlow Smithson and the BBC enable Discovery to go places that no other network has been able to go.”

Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP), UK - based head of special projects Julian Ware said “Journey to the Heart of the Tsunami will be a genuine scientific enquiry of significant interest to geologists, physicists and seismologists, and indeed, to many branches of science in general.

"We have planned the expedition meticulously with the aid of the world’s leading experts, and we expect to return with data that will be hugely beneficial to our understanding of such phenomenon – while at the same time providing dramatic TV footage of the epicenter that triggered the Tsunami.”