The Hindu : National : A colony lies in a shambles

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Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

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National

A colony lies in a shambles

By Vinay Kumar

CAR NICOBAR, JAN. 10. Large diesel generator sets lie mangled outside the tin-roofed building that housed them, cars of the Indian Air Force personnel are twisted out of shape and houses in the officers' colony at the airbase are ripped apart.

This is the scene on this picturesque island after the tsunami hit the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Southern coastal states on December 26. But sandy beaches still dot the meandering coastline, fringed with coconut and palm trees.

A sample of the devastation in the officers' colony is the damage to the houses. Several had their floors blown away by the fury of the waves. The colony, visited by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday, is in shambles and the clearing operation is likely to take a few months.

Tents on runway

The entire complex appeared as if it had been trampled upon. Along the runway hundreds of tents have come up, housing personnel from the Air Force and Central forces. The runway on which a Boeing 737 could land is under repair. Skilled IAF pilots are, however, landing AN-32 aircraft, loaded with relief supplies.

Air Force personnel say that of the 80 missing personnel, 29 bodies had been found so far and search was still on for the others.

"I walked about 20 km with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in search of bodies but could find only four; such was the destruction caused by the tsunami in just 10 to 15 minutes,'' said Jaspal Singh, a senior police officer of the Centrally-administered archipelago.

Toll 320

As many as 20,000 affected persons of the total population of 20,300 of Car Nicobar's 16 villages have been shifted to relief camps since December 26. Officials put the death toll at 320 and the number of missing persons at 494. Central teams that have visited Car Nicobar estimate that the entire infrastructure — roads, jetties, houses and schools — would have to rebuilt from scratch.

Among the first ones to reach Car Nicobar on December 27 was Satyanarain D.V., a postmaster from Hyderabad who is also an amateur ham radio operator. He was deputed by the National Institute of Amateur Ham Radio Operators to establish communication links in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. "I have been camping here since then and helping in the relief operations. I have visited Latur and Gujarat during the earthquakes there earlier and Orissa when the super-cyclone hit the State but I have not seen devastation of this scale,'' he says.

Manmohan's promise

The Prime Minister's motorcade, consisting of just half-a-dozen cars and a couple of mini-buses, stops at Malacca and Kankana villages where relief camps cater to about 1,400 survivors, all from the Nicobarese tribe.

Expressing sympathy with the affected people, Dr. Singh promises all help from the Centre in rebuilding schools, houses and roads and providing healthcare facilities and creating employment opportunities.

`A tough lot'

About a dozen medical specialists from the Public Health Department of Maharashtra are working in the relief camps since December 31.

"The Nicobarese are a tough lot, very aware and the literacy among the tribals is as high as 70 per cent. There is no threat of epidemic but sporadic cases of respiratory problem and trauma are being reported,'' the team of doctors, comprising Vinayak, Prashant and Shettigar from Maharashtra and stationed at Kankana and Malacca village camps, said.

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