Surprisingly that day I had got up at 7 which was early by my standards any day. Went to my neighboring unlce`s house to read the newspaper. Sabha my cousin asked me if I experienced a tremor at 6:30- 6 45. He said it was a earthquake and he felt a slight tremor. I have been called Kumbakarna at times for my amma found it so difficult to wake me up. I had not felt the tremor.
I picked up Suresh and reached Satyam. We just read from a tea shop that 15 people were killed near the beach as water entered land. We could make no sense of the news and went on to see the movie.
Both saw the film and were having our food at a hotel. Then we heard that around 200 people were dead in Chennai marina. Suresh asked me if we should go to marina to see the place flooded with water. But I felt if the news was true there would be utter chaos at the site. So we just turned back home.
Amma had the TV on as I entered home. There was some Cricket match that day but all of us were glued to BBC, NDTV, Headlines today in turns.
Not a moment lost in telling the world a calamity had stuck. I never realized that the slight tremor that I did`nt even realize in my sleep had taken toll to this extent. The death toll all around the world as I reached home was 15000 from 200 in Chennai. I followed the story till 3 next morning. Felt so restless and just decided I might try to volunteer for the relief effort.
Next day I left for Nagapattanam with Suyam.
One year since then. I had a test today. I had the urge to write a blog this morning. Just postponed it to the evening. I had gone to the library like I have been doing before every exam. I read a couple of articles on Tsunami.
There is this one about a girl in Akkaraipettai. She believes and keeps telling people that tsunami shall strike again. When people make her understand that there were scientific reasons to disprove her she just says "Where was the science when Tsunami had struck last time". Just shows mans inability when nature strikes.
Another article says" the next tsunami of this magnitude or even worse shall hit North West American coast. It shall hit the coast within 15 minutes of warning. Last years Tsunami took more than an hour to reach Indian coast and still we were helpless. It hit Andaman within 8 minutes of the earthquake. We had time but no information then. If only we knew that a giant wave was coming towards our coast(at Taminadu) thousands of lives would have been saved and hundreds of families would have celebrated christmas this year as they did last year. Bloody Information ..
How much can man do to avoid calamity?
This picture was taken by Arko Dutta. This picture won some international award among 65000 entries. He had taken the picture for Reuters. The subject of the award winning photo is Indira. "My Anni (sister-in-law) Maheswari was my only moral support till those cruel waves killed her," Indira says.
It is Maheswari's hand that you see in the photo.
Indira and Maheswari had gone to the beach to buy fish for lunch.
"I saw the waves, ran to a coconut tree and clung on to it. I shouted 'Anni, Anni' till I almost drowned. I was almost naked when some people rescued me. But there was no sign of my Anni. The sari you see in the photo was given by some villagers."
Two days later (on December 28), neighbours told me that Anni's body had been found on the seashore. When I saw her body, bloated beyond recognition, I could only beat my chest and wail," she says.
After having exhausted the relief, Indira was forced to pawn her ornaments.
The collector at Nagapattanam is a wonderful administrator and nice human being. His effort has been so publicly known. There are organisations like Suyam that are trying to help people in their own way. And there are gritty survivors like Indira, Anand, Bhaskar, Arulmani and many more.. They just don`t give up.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment