The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : It's not calm after the storm

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

It's not calm after the storm

By Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI, DEC. 27. This time, there was no calm after the storm. Instead, there was great unrest. Their thatched-roof houses, kin and belongings washed away in the fury of the waves, residents of the fishing hamlets right along the world's second longest coastline have been uprooted from their homes and tossed casually out onto the streets by tsunami.

And there, they have remained. At least most of them. The entire stretch of the platform from Foreshore Estate right through Santhome, Triplicane and Chepauk is dotted with people squatting on rusty tin boxes, surrounded by wet clothes and broken odds and ends.

"We ran here at around after the waves entered our houses on Sunday morning. We have been here since," says Lalli, who is currently living on the pavement off Santhome High Road, ever since water flooded her house- 377/1- at the Srinivasapuram slum in Foreshore Estate. She and her neighbours have refused to move out to other government shelters, living just a few metres away from their erstwhile homes, believing that when relief comes, they must be there to get it.

"The government people will come to draw up a list. If we are not here, we will miss it," she says, having spent a cold night on the pavement, after she buried her sister's son who was killed by the seismic waves, watching over the young girls who were asleep. The food has been coming in regularly, donated by voluntary organisations, government agencies and philanthropists, but drinking water is a problem. Well, not so much a problem as the uncertainty of their lives. Some of the residents went back to the remains of their homes, in an attempt at salvaging whatever little they could late Sunday evening and early Monday morning. They came back, arms loaded with wet clothes, heavy with sand, parts of broken almirahs, stoves, radios and televisions - no longer usable. "All the children's books and bags have been washed away. Before you could snap your finger, the water was all over. We could only helplessly see the books floating on the water," says Uma, who is also from Srinivasapuram.

"Our books are blank. The writing has been washed out by the sea water," complains Sundararaj, who used to live in the Thideer Nagar slum, behind Santhome Church. He is presently living with his family in the CSI St.Thomas English Church compound and often jumps over the Church wall to go back to his house, now partially destroyed by the sea.

Other members of the slums are housed in several government buildings, including the Zoological Society of India, and in churches right across the beach front. At 65/34, `Kalpana House," 300 - 400 homeless people have sought shelter. The owner of the property K.Vijayakumar, who once worked with the United Nations, has opened the front and rear gates of his sprawling house for this neighbours -the fisherfolk. "Our rear gate opens out into the beach. When the wave first came in, we opened it, allowing people to run into our house. That might have saved the lives of 50-60 people," he adds. Apart from accommodation, he is also arranging to provide food to those temporarily occupying the grounds of his house.

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