North-East Tidal Wave devastation Mother Nature’s Fury receded; Tribulation lingers on
Homesteads wiped out, families either swallowed in full or scattered in parts, the populace that once called the North-East coast their habitat and the sea their mother who fed them, are all dazed. A people made refugees overnight several times during the last two decades due to man’s inhumanity to man, look up in desperation this time round, not knowing whom to accuse, for it is the fury of Mother Nature that has made them refugees again.
Ironically, the human tragedy that entailed the fury is now beginning to emerge in figures, giving statistics of the dead, injured and disappeared. The relief teams put on the field by the Special Task Force formulated yesterday, have started compiling data pertaining to the immediate needs in the spheres of shelter, food, clothing, medical aid etc. Also engaged are teams that are assessing the situation relating to persons reported missing with maximised efforts to re-link families if separated in the melee. Identification of bodies recovered, has become a major problem for the aid workers in cases where all the members in a family have been swept away and there isn’t anybody who could help in identifying. Rural volunteers, however were able to help the rescue teams to a certain extent and with recourse to house-hold lists, tentative numbers have been arrived at. It is reported that the rescue teams have retrieved about 200 bodies today at the Mullaittivu coast. Lack of accommodation in the hospital mortuaries and the complexity involved in identification, have necessitated burial of bodies mostly decomposed, at convenient locations closer to the sites of retrieval after being photographed for future identification.
28 December 2004
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Europe which has a total population of 800 million is made up of 45 language based nation states. South Asia which has a total population of one billion, (1000 million) is comprised of four states. Who is preventing and therefore benefiting by limiting new nation-states in South Asia?
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