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Tsunami Syndrome - NorthEast reeling

It is three days now since the unprecedented natural disaster struck the North-East coast, but the surviving population that was rendered homeless is still continuing with the scanty relief that is provided by TRO, CBO’s and voluntary organisations within the local resources available in the absence of substantial relief from the government.

Bodies of the dead continue to be retrieved from the disaster sites and the rescue and relief teams have a hard time in arranging transport of bodies to burial sites, helping the surviving relatives in identifying and also taking care of the hundreds of thousands housed in public buildings in safer locations, but without basic sanitation facilities. Rural volunteer groups are working hard under the stewardship of the Special Task Force formulated with the participation

The news that the Sri Lankan government, in its appeal to the international community and the donor nations, makes mention that it is only the south and east of the island that have been affected, leaving the equally affected North, makes the Tamil people feel alienated and again discriminated, even when it comes to natural disaster and its impact. A people who have already undergone numerous displacements and an inhuman economic embargo imposed on them by the government during the last two decades, but built up a semblance of normalcy in their lives during the cease fire period, are again left in the lurch.

Significantly seen in the entire scenario is the omnipresence of the Tamil Eelam Police and the Health volunteers attached to the Tamil Eelam Health Services, readily available to meet exigencies. ‘Voice of Tigers’, the Tamil National Broadcasting service is doing a round the clock service providing information relating to death, displacements, disappearances, blood donations and tracing of missing relatives. According to the District Secretary, Mullaittivu, the ten million allocated by the Treasury for relief work is barely sufficient to meet the immediate needs. Most of the wells in Mullaittivu polluted with sea water that brought in decomposed bodies and it is feared that this, among other pollution, would create serious health hazards.

Meanwhile, reports from Batticaloa-Amparai indicate that there is a serious shortage of rural volunteers to help in the retrieval of bodies that continue to be washed ashore and the related relief work, since many villages have been completely wiped out and the survivors in partly affected areas are in bereavement over loss of members in most of the families. Medical students from the universities who travelled from the different parts of the island are actively engaged in providing basic medical aid in the various welfare centres. Batticaloa-Amparai districts too appear to have been sidelined in the national disaster management equation.

29 December 2004

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