The Catastrophe in Southern India

By Pauline Sathiamurthy

December 28, 2004

With great grief and immense sense of loss and sorrow, I regret to inform you about a terrible tragedy that has struck coastal Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and portions of Kerala on the 26th of December 2004.

This violent catastrophe got the entire nation unawares, took away with it innocent and unsuspecting people as victims and left behind large devastation, unprecedented and unbelievable. The Government, NGOs and faith-based organizations like the Church of South India (CSI) are gearing up to salvage and assess the situation but we really are unable to give an exact or even an approximate number of people who are dead because in places like Kanyakumari and Nagapatinam, there were thousands of people from different parts of the country as pilgrims whose names or numbers are not registered and who have been washed away by the Tsunami.

As a kind of Christmas penance and offering, the Velankanni Shrine right next to Nagapatinam (the worst hit in Tamil Nadu) was bursting its seams with pilgrims. Now most of them are missing. Likewise in Chennai, most of the people who were washed away were early morning walkers along the Merina, youth and children. . .

As a kind of Christmas penance and offering, the Velankanni Shrine right next to Nagapatinam (the worst hit in Tamil Nadu) was bursting its seams with pilgrims. Now most of them are missing. Likewise in Chennai, most of the people who were washed away were early morning walkers along the Merina, youth and children practicing cricket in front of the beach, fisher folk whose hutments are right along the beach front, and tourists from both within the country and from overseas who were staying in many of the beach resorts along the coast line. The official statistics, which say about 200 people died, are based on the actual number of bodies recovered from the sea. But eyewitnesses say that it should have been more than 1500 people who were simply carried away by these tidal waves in Chennai.

In Machilipatnam, within the diocese of Krishna-Godavari, a colossal loss of life has taken place, the victims especially being little children who were residents of orphanages run by NGOs and church organizations close to the seashore. The information I received from Bishop Dyvasirvadam is that a whole lorry load of little children – almost a hundred in number – were picked up dead strewn on the sands of the seashore.

This being the situation, what we are now grappling with is:

• immediate food supply to the people who have been evacuated from their homes
• change of clothing
• blankets to keep them warm since nights in December can be extremely chilly
• clean drinking water since most of the water sources have become inundated with the sea water and thereby rendered useless for drinking purposes.

We also need medicines to prevent and contain an epidemic of diarrhea or even cholera. Once the situation is stabilized, then the church has to consider long-term rehabilitation which will include counseling to the women and children, women whose little children were simply plucked away from their arms, and young children who stood helplessly watching the waves carry away their parents. These people are in a state of traumatized shock and need to undergo counseling therapy and then we also have to consider providing shelters in alternate safe places for these victims of this natural calamity.

On behalf of the Church of South India, I thank our dear brothers and sisters for your prayers and also would gratefully accept any form of support to be passed on to the victims.

With prayers,

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Pauline Sathiamurthy is general secretary of the Church of South India. A long-time educator and NGO administrator, she coordinates the organizational work of that ecumenical church throughout the southern region of the country.