Here are few memories drawn from the diary that I maintained during my stay at Nagapattinam in Jan-Feb 2005. - Anshul
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25th January 2005: Arrived at Nagapattinam today afternoon at three. While coming here, was expecting to see some sign of tsunami ravages. But nothing suggests that the place was so badly hit by the killer waves only a month ago. Except for a bridge connecting Karaikal (Pondichery) and Nagapattinam (Tamilnadu). It was broken, and Indian Army was repairing it. The state transport bus had to take a circular route avoiding that bridge.
Reached the NGO co-ordination center (NCC) directly. Sarat, Niloufer and Sachin had reached there in the morning itself (from Ahmedabad).
The NCC is situated in two parts-A tent on the right hand side of the district collectorate building (within the campus) and the first floor 5-computer enclosure in the collectorate office. Met few very interesting people acting as volunteers with the NCC. Mr Rammohan from Bangalore, a very senior development professional, has headed national level interventions, and now heading NCC for the last ten days and is with us till 28th. Ms. Latha Vasudevan, who lives in California and is from Chennai, has come out as a volunteer from Bhumika India, taking care of the front desk at the NCC. Ms. Archana, TISS alumnus and FES staff, has done good job in last 20 days and is now leaving tomorrow, taking care of demand aggregation and procurement at NCC. Ms. Achamma, from Canada, a senior finance executive and a documentary producer, cousin sister of Arundhati roy, and mentioned as little Sophie mall in God of small things, taking care of finance and logistics at NCC.
The rescue phase is over here. The rehabilitation phase is on. Temporary shelters are being built, provisions have been distributed, demands for left out items- women undergarments and fishermen's tiffin carriers- is now coming from villages.
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27th January: Today we went to Tharangamwadi village. We four didn't know Tamil, and Lata akka acted as translator for us. Tsunami had caused 400 deaths in this village. The habitation starts 30 meters from the sea. The houses, the huts as well as those built of brick and cement, have been washed away. Few stronger ones that have been ravaged but not fully destroyed have watermarks at human heights, signifying what level the tsunami waves reached on 26th. The sand at beach was not visible. The mortar and brick layered it fully. A half standing wall at the other end of the village had the other half swept away 100 meters away in the form of a boulder lying near the beach.
This is a SIFFS village. SIFFS has built 267 temporary shelters (@ Rs.8000 per shelter) and is repairing the boats in its newly constructed boat-repairing center at the village entrance. Government has also been very professional and efficient in responding to the disaster, and has put up 272 community sheds (@ Rs. 1 lakh per shed, one shed for 20 families) as temporary shelters. The ration (50 kg of rice and related eatables) and the Rs. 4000 per family compensation has been distributed. The list of deceased for compensation of 1-lakh has been finalized.
The destruction was mammoth and total. However, people seem ok, not complaining much. They have been provided with utensils, mats, clothes, and they have faith in the future- better shelters, better equipments. They are putting up brave face, but that's only a mask.
While talking to shelter number 103 (There was a child of eight or nine years saying something in Tamil to me. On enquiry, I got to know that he was saying "I live in shelter 103". I don't know what he meant. He belonged to a joint family and has lost his aunty and the cousin sister. Perhaps he identifies with his shelter number.), we got an insight of how difficult it is for them to do the daily household chores. There is a small enclosure of 12 feet by 12 feet for each family. No separate space for cooking, toilets ten for the whole village, one drinking water spot with three taps. Water supply is two hours a day. Only one donated pot for water. No place to take bath. Etc……………………………
A group of children were playing near the shelters. Sarat and Niloufer joined them. A small girl came near me and asked for one of my two pens. I gave her one. In two minutes time there were ten more children asking for the only pen left with me. I refused and walked towards the community shed.
The community shed is used for community prayers or meetings. I met there with two counselors from Sri Ravishankar's Art of Living Foundation. They informed me "The shock is very deep with people. But fishermen are very proud people. They will bear brave face in front of outsiders and will come as people that are not much affected. But each of them is deeply hurt, disturbed and desperate. Unlike the other disasters, tsunami doesn't leave many people physically injured. But their mental agony, people who understand what a bank is, won't be able to understand. These fishermen don't have any fall back option, and everything of theirs has been washed away. If it were an easily detectable depression, its treatment and handling would have been easy. But this silence of theirs is more disturbing. Since we realized the very nature of fishermen society, and understood that they won't feel comfortable in sharing their individual agony, we have started organizing the ma prayers two time in a day, in the morning and evening."
Nagapattinam has 73 such affected villages, and the number of NGOs working in tsunami hit villages had crossed the 400 mark.
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6th Feb: A Mr. Shyam from Software firm Delphi, Bangalore called me (he visited the site tsunami-india2004 and got the number) a week ago.
He wanted to help in any way that the NGO co-ordination center will be willing to take in software or database management. He wanted to be there at Nagapattinam for a day or two and design few things if needed. He sounded like those many calls that we were receiving from the compulsive but less serious volunteers. After consulting Vivekanandan sir on this issue, I got back to him saying 'no thanks'.
He said that was ok, and we can ask for him if the need arises.
Exactly a week passed, and yesterday (i.e. saturday evening) when I was coming out of the meeting organized for all the NGOs on the issue of construction of permanent shelter, this individual was waiting for me at the NCC tent. "Well, I felt that I sounded less serious, and in order to make up for the tone, I felt the need to come up and see for myself if the call that I made from my ITPark office in B'lore was a bit away from reality" is how he put it. We were happy to receive him.
I was taking care of the database at NCC, and with help from the programmer from SIFFS (Pradeep) I showed him how we were managing the database their. Surely, there were problems and inefficiencies. He stayed for a day, removed many bugs, and offered further assistance in web site management. Today he went, quietly back to Bangalore.
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8th February 2005: Visited the tsunami hit areas with subhash today.
Subhash is a Nagapattinam born engineer working in Singapore. When he heard of the tragedy, left his job at Singapore and rushed back home.
For initial days he lived in tsunami hit village 5 kilometers from Nagapattinam, slept in the verandah of the only home left standing in the village. Then he heard of the NCC and volunteered his services.
Raman, the American born Indian volunteering with NCC and taking care of the front desk queries and documentation, was also supposed to come. However, he was not feeling fine and went back to the hotel in the afternoon.
The beach here again was only 25-30 meters from sea. The port at Nagapattinam is hardly 3 kilometers away. The household with whom subhash was living shared their experiences with us. There is a bridge that connects the village with the city. When tsunami wave struck for the first time at 9:30 AM on 26th December, the bridge got obstructed.
The big trawlers (looked like steamers with capacity to carry more than 200 people) were flown in tsunami over the bridge and thrown five kilometers inside the fields. It came in a flash, with few minutes only. One trawler was thrown just across the bridge, preventing people to cross it. Thankfully, there was the parallel bridge under construction and the concrete has been put only a week ago. More than 3000 people took refuge on this weak concrete structure, few with the dead bodies of their dear ones in their laps. The second wave came at 9:50 and brought with it scores of dead bodies. But these bodies were of foreign tourists, swept away from the port few kms away. The dead bodies of people from this village were later found five or six kms down the sea. The third wave came after half an hour, bringing in more dead bodies. There was no connection from outside world even two days after the disaster. The whole habitation has been flattened and turned in to rubble. People, fearing outbreak of disease, dug up trenches near sea for bodies to be cremated or burnt. The water level in the area, because of proximity to sea, is hardly eight to ten feet, and hence the pit thus dug up was only of man height. Later, the low depth became a problem. The sea waves during the tide would come till the place and will bare the bodies or bones. The street dogs will take them out and eat. The street dogs had also become very ferocious and had bitten many since then. The district administration had to take out the bodies and recremate them. The health commissioner also ordered for all the street dogs to be poisoned (killed).
We met a small boy who goes to school in the near by town. He is a creative boy, and showed me few new sketches of his, three to be precise. Small hands had drawn three versions of his badi (colony)- immediately before the tsunami, during tsunami wave one, and after tsunami wave two. He says that people died in first wave as they were caught unaware. But destruction was caused more by wave number two.
