26 Dec 2004 ... it dawned as a normal day. I was at my native place Porayar, a small town in Nagapattinam district located barely a couple of km away from the shores of the Bay of Bengal at Tarangambadi. Since that happened to be the holy Margazhi, the misty month in Tamil Calendar, people got up early and were saying their prayers. So did I and was chatting with my father about the plight of Kanchi Sankaracharya who had been arrested a month-and-half earlier.
When I turned the TV on, a news flash reported that Chennai experienced mild tremors early that morning. While hearing the news about the tremors at Chennai, I remained more like the French King Louis XV, who lived only for himself and did not care whether his people survived or not and I was thinking like him "After me the Deluge". But, I was not aware that I was going to witness a massive tragedy within a few minutes. The deluge had actually been waiting to come that moment!
The clock ticked 9:30 am. I heard screaming voices outside my street. Power suddenly went off. Telephones went dead. Cell phone lines remained clogged. A friend of mine rushed in and cried "sea is surging ahead". I laughed at him as this statement is quite common in our area on full-moon days. That fateful day being a full-moon day, I thought he was referring to the raging waves. (Sea used to remain agitated on full-moon days).
But soon, I saw people running helter-skelter. I came out of my house and went eastward. Alas! a horrifying sight! Seawater had come up hundreds of metres away from the shore. When I reached the spot, water, two feet high, had been showing signs of raising and lowering. Anxious onlookers started talking about the plight of the people of eight small hamlets (Tarangambadi, Manickapangu, Kuttiyandiyur, Chandrapadi, Chinnangudi, Chinnamedu, Veppanchery and Perumalpettai) around our town who lived right at the seafront. Suddenly, I saw hundreds of people running towards us. We did not have any clue as to what was happening.
About 100 people, men, women and little children reached our town. They were fully wet, their bodies were shivering, they could not speak a word. Their eyes told horror stories. We helped them take shelter inside the Government Hospital compound, located nearby. Within a few minutes, hundreds of others followed them. All of them told in one voice: "sea has swept away our hamlets. Huge tides, black in colour, looking like a moving mountain came in, pulled everything. The back flow current was so strong that no one could swim against it". There was chaos and commotion. By 10:15 AM, water showed signs of receding.
These three photos sum up the magnitude of damage (at Tarangambadi and Vailankanni respectively):
At Tarangambadi, I saw this young man crying aloud - his two little children and wife had succumbed right in front of his eyes. Sankar, a friend captured this distressing moment. Heart-rending scenes like this, which I saw that day keep haunting me often, even now..
In the meantime, hundreds of youths from our place rushed to the coastal hamlets - Tarangambadi, Manickapangu, Kuttiyandiyur, Chandrapadi, Chinnangudi, Chinnamedu, Veppanchery and Perumalpettai. By 11:30 AM, these young men were rushing injured children, babies, women and aged in two-wheelers to the Porayar GH. Some were dead and others were dying. Though doctors were not present, the nursing assistants acted swiftly and gave timely first-aid to the injured. They saved a few lives, but certainly more could have been saved, had doctors been present and if the GH had had facilities like Oxygen cylinders. The hospital had an ambulance, but no driver. I cursed my fate, perhaps for the first time in my life that I was living in a useless place. [Of course, the situation in the hospital has improved now a lot, two doctors are on duty round-the-clock].
By 12:00 noon, the hospital compound was filled with hundreds of people - dead and dying. People were crying inconsolably. When I went into Tarangambadi, I witnessed the most dreadful scene in my life. More than 70 persons - children and aged, had lost their lives. Dead bodies were strewn across the streets. Boats had been thrashed on top of houses. The place where I used to see huts, had become a field of debris. Hundreds of cattle were seen floating on water. A huge sea turtle had been thrown into the land. Big fish species were found dead on streets. Several venomous creatures - snakes, scorpions and several new species were freely floating on water.
In the midst of all these, few people were seen sitting or hanging on tree branches. Most of them remained unconscious. Youths from neighbouring places rescued them and took them to the nearby helpless GH. The nursing assistants could not cope with the situation. A private lady doctor residing at Porayar, came to the hospital on her own accord. She saved a few lives. But the hospital was overcrowded. Tarangambadi Tahsildar had sent a few Government buses to the Porayar GH to carry the people for 'further treatment' in Mayiladuthurai GH. People literally pushed the dead and the dying into Government buses. Human life seemed to have very little value!
In the meantime, those who survived the attack were trembling as the seawater had turned their bodies wet. The cold weather that prevailed on that day, added insult to the injury. Most of the people wanted something 'hot' to take in. We thought it was important to serve the living at that moment than recovering the dead bodies. We, a group of friends, decided to supply Tea to the people to mitigate shivering. We went into the town to get milk. Most of the shops remained closed. After wandering through the streets, we could gather just 77 litres of milk. Milk Powder was not available. With the help of the women of our area, we started preparing Tea. We added 150 litres of water to the 77 litres of milk. The tea was ready by 2:30 PM. But, by then, more than 5000 people had taken shelter in a school in my town. We had just 2000 cups of Tea. The most painful moment in my life! We felt helpless and cursed ourselves for the inability to provide tea to all the people!
By 5 PM, the magnitude of devastation in our area came to light. The GH was full of dead bodies. People were searching for their loved ones. When dead bodies were brought to the GH, people were seen praying, "God, my son's body should not be there". Heart-rending scenes everywhere. Until then, I was thinking the devastation had happened only in my district. But, power supply was restored in select areas and we understood that entire South East Asia had come under that attack. In Nagapattinam district, more than 3000 bodies had been recovered by the evening (final toll in the district crossed 6000). In my town, people were discussing that the death toll in Tarangambadi alone would have exceeded 1000.
Streets were full of volunteers to help those who had escaped the attack. I could see only Humanists, humanists and humanists. People willingly contributed for preparing food for the victims. Young men and women gathered up to prepare food for a mammoth 5000 victims at a single place. Calamity united people of all religions and people of all classes. Even rich were running errands for the victims. The victims wanted water, but water packets and bottles were in short supply in the area. Local people brought drinking water in cans, drums and many other big utensils.
By 8 PM, I was back again at the GH. Death toll had gone up to 256. We spent our night in a school with those unfortunate people who lost everything in their life in a moment. Victims were shell-shocked and they could not properly speak. People were grief-stricken and were crying and that night passed off without a bit of sleep.
[My father, a senior journalist with PTI and the Indian Express had to tour all the affected areas and file spot stories. He was being constantly contacted by fellow journalists representing various print and electronic media organizations across the country for inputs. As Vailankanni bore the brunt of the attack, anxious relatives of pilgrims from Goa, Mangalore, Mumbai and Kerala kept calling my father (by getting his contact details through PTI) for information about their relatives. My father rushed to Vailankanni that day, but could not get any information, as the streets of the holy town contained just dead bodies. Wherever he traveled, my father had heard only death cries. Yet, he felt that it was his duty to objectively report the enormity of the calamity immediately to PTI, a very powerful news agency that could disseminate the info worldwide in minutes, so that survivors could get assistance. He dedicated himself to tsunami reporting for several months thereafter...].
The next morning was still more painful. There were just six toilets in the local high school where more than 5000 people had taken shelter. Women found it difficult to complete their morning ablutions. They did not have extra clothes to wear. A horrible experience indeed! The Government machinery was in utter confusion unable to cope with the devastation. Almost all the 80 hamlets in the 147-km long coastline of Nagapattinam district had suffered unprecedented damage. In the morning, the GH was full of dead bodies and after the formal identification process, they had to be disposed off. There was no machinery, no man- power to execute that. The Tahsildar ran here and there and brought a few persons. They dug the sand, 30 feet long and 15 feet deep and three such pits. Nearly 200 bodies were buried en-masse amidst heart-rending cries. Similar scenes followed during the subsequent days...
From Dec 28 onwards, help started pouring in from various quarters... The attention of the International Civil Society turned on our district. The Government also streamlined the relief works. Official figures put death toll in Tarangambadi area alone as 517 and 220 missing. For those who have seen this devastation only in the TV, this tragedy might have become a sad memory, but for the victims it is an ongoing nightmare.. the Government and the NGOs have done a lot to rebuild their lives, but the tragic memories of Dec 26 would haunt them for ever!
