Abdul Mahid stands looking at what is left of his house. Unlike his neighbors, he is not searching through the rubble - all that remains of his home. "More than 50 of my neighbors died," he says, still dazed at having escaped the force of the waves with his life.
Abdul Mahid lived and owned a store in Kattandkudy in Batticaloa on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Like the other shop owners in the area, he lived close to the beach. Whole areas of his town and villages nearby were obliterated by the tsunami that crashed into the coastline on December 26. In this part of town, which is the Muslim Quarter, 1,000 residents have been confirmed dead, says Rev Nadarajah Arulnathan, who is coordinating the relief efforts of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) - a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International - in this area.
For this Methodist pastor, the sea is now something to fear. The tsunami claimed the lives of his sister and 18 other relatives. "I get afraid when I see the sea," he says. But there is little time to think and reflect on the devastating impact of the giant waves more than a week ago. From early in the morning, until late at night, he is busy organizing NCCSL/ACT's disaster response program for this area.
NCCSL/ACT is heading up the coordination of medical assistance to ten camps in the Batticaloa area, where some 5,500 were killed. Five of the "camps" are in fact church buildings - all packed with people sleeping on thin mats on the bare floor. There was no time to grab anything. They simply fled for their lives and now have nothing, except for the clothes they are wearing. About 1,400 have sought shelter in the Pentecostal church and 1,800 in the Methodist church.
"It is a big challenge to feed them," Rev Arulnathan says. A new truckload of relief items including food and clothes was dispatched to the Batticaloa region yesterday, to supplement what had already been distributed to people who had been displaced by the disaster. Suganthi Manarotathan says that there are not enough mats, clothes and bottles for the babies. The 23-year old woman has two small children and is staying in the Pentecostal church. But there are also the orphans who have to be taken care of says Rev Arulnathan, who is taking care of two young children whose family died in the disaster.
He is pleased that nothing beyond logistical challenges have stood in the way of relief efforts in the area - not caste, not ethnicity, not people's religious affiliations. "People help each other," he says, describing how Muslims, Buddhist and Christians have all come together to respond to the emergency.
"But people are not ready to go back," says Rev Arulnathan, responding to plans to resettle people so soon after the disaster, even if new restrictions have now been put in place, not permitting people to build homes closer than 500 meters from the ocean. He says that the survivors were traumatized, and that there are still people who suffered such severe shock, that they have not even come forward to ask for assistance. "People do not talk much at the moment," he says, adding that they need trauma counseling. "Some ask themselves why they could escape. And then there is nobody to help them identify those who died."
The pastor says that the suffering of people has been going on for years. "They were affected by the 20-year long civil war, by regular floods [such as] the ones in the last three months, and now by the tsunami." All of this is made worse by the fact that many people are still missing, even a week later. The huge waves carried people for long distances, and many may still be covered by sand where they eventually came to rest. Some areas are still not accessible, because of the danger of landmines that were washed out from the military camps and spread randomly. Whole areas have to be cleared of these mines first. The sheer scope of the work that still needs to be done is staggering - and clearing the compound of one of the Methodist churches close to the town is only one of the many tasks still to be undertaken. And beyond the church compound lies a wasteland.
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