The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Tsunami leaves Vizhinjam, Pozhiyoor residents shocked

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

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Tsunami leaves Vizhinjam, Pozhiyoor residents shocked

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC. 27. Residents of the fishing village of Vizhinjam near here are no strangers to the fury of the sea but on Monday, they were still reeling from the memory of the huge waves which surged inland, inundating the entire beach on Sunday. Local residents recall how the initial curiosity soon gave way to panic all along the coast.

Says Shajahan, a fishworker, "As we watched, the sea welled up and within a few minutes, the water reached almost up to the roof of the port office. The whole beach and the wharf were inundated under several feet of water." Fishermen say it is a sight they will not forget in a hurry.

Many of them are relieved at having been spared the magnitude of the tragedy which left a trail of destruction along fishing villages in central Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. There was no loss of life here and the damage to property was minimum. Hundreds of families in the Vizhinjam and Pozhiyoor areas were shifted to relief camps as a precautionary measure.

At Vizhinjam, the first sea surge occurred at 10 am. The boats anchored at the harbour banged against each other and strained at their moorings as the water level rose alarmingly. Fishermen laboured to drag the smaller craft further up the beach. The subsequent surges inundated the sheds used to store fishing equipment and the men scrambled to recover what they could.

Soon, 10-foot high waves rushed in, flooding the harbour, the No Man's Land on the beach and the entire length of the wharf and the huts on the beach. Old timers said they had never witnessed such a phenomenon in living memory.

At the relief camp set up at the Harbour Area LP School, medical teams were administering to the inmates. Doctors said many of the people were in a state of shock. Some of the fishermen suffered injuries in the mad scramble to drag boats up the beach.

Clamour for free ration

The 450 families at the relief camps are clamouring for free ration. "The tsunami could not have come at a worse time. Being the lean season for fishing, many of the families are on the verge of starvation. The damage to boats and the loss of fishing equipment mean that many fishermen cannot go out to sea for days. Most of the outboard engines are soaked and it will take days to repair and service them. It has added to the misery of the fisherfolk," says Rajendrakumar, the CPI(M) area secretary.

Further to the north, residents in the Pozhiyoor village maintained a night-long vigil as news of the destruction wrought by the tsunami trickled in. With an abnormal surge flooding a large stretch of the beach, people escaped to safer ground with their belongings. The local church, the school and some wedding halls were kept open throughout the night to accommodate the fleeing families. On Monday, the district administration opened two relief camps at the St. Mathews High School and the Government UP School to accommodate 500 families.

The Transport Minister, Sakthan Nadar, the Ports Minister, M.V. Raghavan, and the district panchayat president, Sasikala Sivashankar, visited the affected areas at Vizhinjam.

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