On the morning of 26 December 2004, a tsunami struck coastal areas around the Indian Ocean. The sea surge was caused by an earthquake off the coast of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. It left more than 300,000 people dead. The worst affected areas in India were Pondicherry and coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala provinces. From the first day on, SOS Children's Villages ran emergency relief programmes and helped reconstruct family homes and community buildings. At the beginning, the focus was on providing psychological care, food and shelter to the victims. The next step was trying to locate surviving relatives of children and finding out if they could take care of the children. Finally, it was decided to build two new SOS Children's Villages for children who had lost all their relatives. Nagapattinam and Pondicherry were chosen for the sites of these villages as these areas were most severely struck by the tsunami.

SOS Children's Village Nagapattinam will consist of ten family homes, the village director's house, a community building, co-worker residences, a house for the so called SOS aunts (SOS mothers in training or family helpers who support the SOS mothers and fill in for them when they are sick or on holiday), a workshop and a garage.

There is also an SOS Social Centre from where family strengthening programmes are run. At first, the social centre was housed in a rented building and the family strengthening programmes were part of the tsunami relief. Their aim is to help single parents (especially single mothers) to get by and to keep them from abandoning their children, for example by providing child day care or by donating school books and uniforms. Later on, the building of the social centre and the land around it were bought, and this is where the new SOS Children's Village is being constructed. It is situated in a residential area of Nagapattinam town opposite the Collector's office. All the basic facilities such as markets, schools and hospitals are available within two to three kilometres.

SOS Children's Village Nagapattinam is under construction. Its completion is scheduled for 2008.