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1. DEATH FROM THE SEA –EDITORIAL, Deccan Herald dated 27/12/04 The element of surprise in the tsunami's strike on a holiday morning explains, in part, the calamitous effects in the cities, towns, and villages that were engulfed by the sea. Fishermen who put out to sea in their catamarans and other boats, and their families in coastal hamlets, account for a huge part of the still unknown death toll 2. Fake victims try to usurp benefits, The New Indian Express dated 3/1/05. As soon as word went around that the officials will come to assess the damage for compensation, many people with the help of local strongmen encroached on the sands and marked spots near the sea to claim the compensation 3. A week later, tsunami survivors are swamped by a wave of red tapism, The New Indian Express dated 4/1/05 Homeless, she can claim no compensation for her dead husband without this paper. A clerk asks her to first lodge a missing person's complaint at the town police station next door. At the station, a constable waves her off, saying her village was under the jurisdiction of the neighbouring station, kilometres away 4. Touts, thugs grab share of relief pie, The New Indian Express dated 5/1/05. Tsunami victims in Nagapattinam have now to cope with another peril now - touts. 5. Thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers prey on tsunami victims, The New Indian Express dated 5/1/05 Thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers are preying on tsunami survivors and families of victims in Asian refugee camps and hospitals and in the home countries of European tourists hit by the wave. 6. For survivors, the biggest worry is their rehabilitation, The New Indian Express dated 6/1/05 Eleven days after the tsunamis devastated Chennai’s coastline and shattered their houses along it, these families still remain huddled under polythene sheets supported by bamboo poles. 7. ‘Fake’ fishermen grab relief, The New Indian Express dated 7/1/05 It is said some local political leaders are pitchforking ‘fake’ fishermen and trying to grab relief meant for the genuine victims. 8. Corporation relief camps closed, survivors are homeless again, The New Indian Express dated 8/1/05 The Chennai Corporation has wound up many of its relief camps leaving the survivors of the tsunamis clueless about their daily meal and shelter. 9. And now 'disaster tourism' swamps tsunami-hit regions, The New Indian Express dated 8/1/05 Volunteers, obsessed with the need to "do good" are making things worse - in many places 10. The global political fault line, The Hindu, Editorial dated 13/1/05 People all over the world have reacted immediately in providing help to the victims of the tsunami. In contrast, Governments have been less forthcoming. 11. Fears follow fury: Shut traffickers from tsunami widows & orphans, The Statesman dated 19/1/05 Prevent children and young widows from being exploited by “vultures looking out to fish in troubled waters. 12. Tirunelveli fishermen await assistance, The Hindu dated 24/1/05. Like
Tirunelveli's once vivacious fishing industry, which came to a halt after
the December 26 tsunami strike destroyed boats and other fishing equipment,
building of and repairs to fibreglass boats have been thrown out of gear,
as fishermen are yet to receive sufficient financial assistance from the
Government. 1.
DEATH FROM THE SEA –EDITORIAL, Deccan Herald dated 27/12/04 2.
Fake victims try to usurp benefits, The New Indian Express dated 3/1/05.
But there are several such markings even on spots where there was no huts. Taking advantage of the situation, several fake victims are out to usurp the compensation. He said, pointing at the wooden poles sunk into the sands along the coastline near Foreshore Estate, some people claimed that they had huts on spots dangerously closer to the shore. ‘‘As soon as word went around that the officials will come to assess the damage for compensation, many people with the help of local strongmen encroached on the sands and marked spots near the sea to claim the compensation.’’ Mary, wife of a fisherman, said: ‘‘Several people, whom we have never seen before, have recorded their names on the list for compensation.’’ There were warnings of another Tsunami when the assessment officials visited the area and this was exploited to the maximum by the people who already had houses in TNSCB tenements, she said. ‘‘When genuine survivors of the tragedy moved to safer location near the relief camps because of the warning, people from tenements came in and told officials that some of the marked spots used to be their houses, said Thanikavasan, a fishermen. Since everything has been washed away, there is no proof to substantiate that the huts belonged to us, he said. Hence several residents in Duminkuppam and Srinivasapuram did not receive the token issued by the urban body to collect relief materials issued by the government. ‘‘We do not know how to rebuild all that we lost,’’ said Charles, a fisherman, while having food distributed by Dee Cee Manor Hotel. ‘‘I was not there when the assessment officials came because I was waiting for some clothes near the main road.’’ NGO volunteers who were distributing aids said that they did not find any effort from the administration to prevent genuine survivors from getting cheated. Meanwhile, officials seem to have no clue how to tackle the menace of people posing as victims.
After seven days of waiting for her husband, Sundar, who vanished under the waves that smashed Puttalaitheru village nearby, Vinodini is here with her old father-in-law to apply for a Presumed Dead Certificate. Homeless, she can claim no compensation for her dead husband without this paper. A clerk asks her to first lodge a missing person's complaint at the town police station next door. At the station, a constable waves her off, saying her village was under the jurisdiction of the neighbouring station, kilometres away. Minutes later, another survivor, Vasanthi, rushes in to meet the clerks, a five-year-old boy in tow, to inquire about eight-year-old Ayyappan. The process repeats: she is asked to go to the police station first. She doesn't know how to go about it, and we take her along. A constable there stares at her suspiciously, and then says he knows the missing boy is not her son. Vasanthi admits he is her brother-in-law's son, orphaned as an infant. The five-year-old with her is Ayyappan's younger brother. “I am childless. I brought both up as my own sons. Even their school records name me as their mother,'' she weeps. The policemen consult among themselves, and ask her to first get a certificate from the village officer. More come in. P Shanmugan, a goldsmith from Nanaikantal village, has come to get the Presumed Dead certificates for his two sons, Arvind kumar, 15, and Yogesh, 7. Of the 25 people living in his hamlet, 15 are dead. Unlike many others crowding the clerks, Shanmughan is literate and knows how to go about it. But most of the others streaming in do not know they need to lodge a police complaint before going to the tehsildar. They don't know they need to go to the right police station, either. Since Black Sunday, 1,280 people have been reported missing in eight police stations across the district, say senior officers. And the death toll here, according to the Disaster Management and Mitigation Department website on Monday, stands at 5,925. Nagapattinam Tehsildar N Ganapathy says he has instructions not to register anyone without getting a police complaint stamped. “I know it is tough on people when we ask them to go back. But we can't help it. We began the process only today. We hope things will be more fine-tuned in the next couple of days,'' he says. Police stations here have dispensed with the normal practice of registering FIRs. “There is a big rush of people urgently needing these certificates. If we stick to FIRs and enquiry, it will take ages. So we give them a receipt, acknowledging they have filed a missing complaint with us,'' says a senior police officer. The office of K Abdul Rahauff, the Nagapattinam SP, now has a ‘missing people's cell' where anyone can directly register complaints. “We have got 15 in just the last one hour,'' he says.
As the region is flooded with relief materials, there are those who have little qualms in turning the tragedy into a money-spinner. Complaints have surfaced in several places about thugs and touts hijacking relief operations. Now that the affected people have begun returning home, the situation is bound to worsen. In many village panchayats, thugs rule the roost, victims say. While the thugs divert relief trucks to those favoured by them, the touts are out to make what they can out of the ex-gratia settlements that will come soon. On Monday, outside a transit shelter in Velankanni, as a relief truck drove in and the victims rushed for the food, a group of men arrived from nowhere and elbowed out a few women and children, making space for others who hadn’t queued up. ‘‘This happens every day. These are men with political clout and who had been terrorising us even earlier. Now they want to make sure that only those favoured by them survive. If these things happen in government-run camps, it could be worse when we move back to our villages where the the panchayat is all powerful. Most of these panchayats are under the control of such ruffians,’’ notes Selvi (48) who has been surviving on just a packet of bread a day for four days now. Though such scenes are mostly kept under wraps in the district headquarters because of the presence of state ministers, IAS officials and the media, in far-flung areas like Kallaru, Sirkazhi, Nagore and Serudhur, might is right. Members of the TN Tauheed Jammat who had driven in from Panaikulam in Ramanathapuram to distribute relief in Nagore said their truck was intercepted en route and driven away to be offloaded at a house outside the town by a few men who claimed to be government officials. ‘‘There was this man who came on Thursday and told us that if we paid him Rs 50 per head, he would ensure that a truck came our way at least twice a day. I could not afford it and now survive on stale food,’’ laments Victor, a fisherman at Serudhur. ‘‘I have heard some local politicians openly tell district officials to divert trucks bound for one place to another, even after the officials explained that the place in question had been covered,’’ says a United Nations High Commissionerate for Refugees (UNHCR) official who is here to study relief operations. The touts have a simple modus operandi. Though the government will issue ex-gratia payments only through account payee cheques, the fact that many villagers don’t have a bank account seems to have come in handy for them. In many villages, relief workers say they have come across instances where the touts invite villagers to have a joint account with them and promise to pay Rs 10,000-20,000 extra if they agree. ‘‘Taking advantage of their ignorance, one tout told a villager that even to start a bank account, he would need Rs 3,000. The next day, when we came to know about this, we cornered the tout but he managed to escape. On enquiry we found this to be true in many other villages too,’’ says a Red Cross volunteer. Nagapattinam ADSP Z Anne Vijaya too has heard of relief trucks being waylaid by thugs though she has received no complaint. ‘‘We have now devised a system by which any relief truck that comes into Nagai has to come through one of the four checkposts set up for the purpose. Then the vehicles are bunched into groups of five, escorted to the collectorate for registration and from there to the relief camps. We also have eight highway patrols monitoring relief vehicles. None can escape us now,’’ she asserts. As for touts, Nagai Collector Veera Shanmugamoni says the district administration will give ‘‘wide publicity’’ to their mence besides cautioning banks about middlemen.
5.
Thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers prey on tsunami victims, The
New Indian Express dated 5/1/05 Reports and warnings came in from as far apart as Britain, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Hong Kong on Monday of criminals taking advantage of the chaos to rape survivors in Sri Lanka or plunder the homes of European tourists reported missing. In stark contrast to a worldwide outpouring of humanitarian aid in response to the December 26 tsunami, whose death toll stood at nearly 145,000 people by Monday, a women's group in Sri Lanka said rapists were preying on homeless survivors. "We have received reports of incidents of rape, gang rape, molestation and physical abuse of women and girls in the course of unsupervised rescue operations and while resident in temporary shelters," the Women and Media Collective group said. Save the Children warned that youngsters orphaned by the tsunami were vulnerable to sexual exploitation. "The experience of earlier catastrophes is that children are especially exposed," said its Swedish chief, Charlotte Petri Gornitzka. In Thailand thieves disguised as police and rescue workers have looted luggage and hotel safes around Khao Lak beach, where the tsunami killed up to 3,000 people. Sweden sent seven police officers there on Monday to investigate the reported kidnap of a Swedish boy of 12 whose parents were carried off by the wave. SWEDEN HARD HIT: Sweden is the hardest hit country outside the tsunami region with more than 2,500 missing and 52 confirmed dead. But it kept their names secret after some homes were targeted by thieves. "It is unfortunately a reality that people who are known to be missing ... have had their homes gone through and partly emptied," State Secretary Lars Danielsson told local radio. Swedish police could not give details of such break-ins but said similar incidents of looting had occurred after the 1994 sinking of the Estonia, which killed 551 Swedes. "That is the reason that we are now so careful about distributing the names this time," a police spokeswoman said. In neighbouring Norway police were on the alert for attempts by criminals to get their names on the list of victims to obtain a new identity or commit insurance fraud. Kjersti Oppen of the National Crime Investigation Service said the list of missing Norwegians was being checked for names with criminal records or large debts. Similar fraud occurred after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. In Britain, which has at least 40 people among the victims, police said a man had been arrested for sending hoax emails to people who had placed appeals for information about relatives and friends on a television website. The hoaxer, who pleaded guilty in court on Monday, claimed to have information from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand. In Hong Kong, where people are chipping in generously to the relief effort, the charity Oxfam warned of a bogus fundraising email that has been circulating in its name, asking people to send donations to a bank account in Cyprus.
With no official word on when and how they would be rehabilitated, they are unsure of their future. They are uncertain how long they will have to live like this, under tents. ‘‘We have not been told whether we have to rebuild our houses or will be shifted elsewhere. For days, we have been simply sitting at the shore waiting for food packets. No one is giving us any instructions. What will happen to us eventually?’’ Asked Pandian, 56, a fisherman at Foreshore Estate. The pavements along the road are the only resting places for these people when night falls and it is not just the sea that they have to fear now, they have to be careful about looters and miscreants too. ‘‘I have two daughters. How can I sleep under this tent? People are always frightening us that the sea may rise again. Moreover, people come and steal whatever is left with us,’’ said Mahalakshmi who used to sell curd on the beach. By five in the evening the exodus begins and the families along with their belongings move to the pavements. ‘‘There are so many of us there. But at least we feel safe,’’ says Munuswamy, a driver. He said while the family’s attention was elsewhere, someone had stolen water pipes and new sweaters from the rubble of their house. But in the morning almost all the families come back to the shore, once again carrying with them all their belongings. ‘‘If we remain on the pavements, we will not get the relief material. They might even take us for beggars,’’ added Pandian. Some 30 families are relatively lucky. They spend their nights at the Rapha Research Foundation and Charitable Trust run by dansuese Swarnamukhi and her husband Shoury Babu. The victims are also worried that the relief measures by the government may end with the Rs 4,000, clothes and rice that had been distributed earlier in the week. ‘‘Not even a small hut can be built with that money. It will only help us survive for some days. We need more help but are scared that the government may not go any further,’’ added Jaisingh, also a fisherman at Foreshore Estate. It is evident that the relief that had trickled in during the last week has decreased substantially over the days. Selvi, 34, and her two kids could be seen running behind a volunteer with lunch packets. Living in a corner of Sreenivasapuram, they complain that the relief material seldom reach them. ‘‘In the first few days there were so many people willing to help. Now there are not many and today (Wednesday) we have not received any food from the morning,’’ Selvi added. Thet also said that many were injured in the stampede during food distribution. But more than food, it is shelter they are more bothered about. ‘‘We just want a decent place to live, just anywhere, only not by the sea. We are tired of shuttling like this,’’ said Shankar, an auto driver.
It is said some local political leaders are pitchforking ‘fake’ fishermen and trying to grab relief meant for the genuine victims. Genuine victims are irked to find the names of outsiders in the list of beneficiaries. This, they allege, is the handiwork of some local politicians. The Fisheries Department has issued identity cards to fishermen but some of the cards are found in the possession of ‘outsiders’, who are not fishermen. This problem has created confusion among government officials in disbursing assistance to the affected fishermen who had not gone to sea for the past seven days due to rumours of another tsunami. Frustrated, some fishermen are not interested in obtaining this aid and want the relief diverted to other affected districts. N J Bose, general secretary of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry Fishermen’s Federation, who was also sore about this development, said the government should streamline the system of issuing identity cards to real fishermen. It was not difficult for the officials to identify the real fishermen and issue them identity cards, he said. Meanwhile, Collector K Sellamuthu assured that the assistance would reach the genuine fishermen at the earliest.
Women and children were found sitting on the pavements in front of the Corporation school, Santhome, in the hot afternoon sun. ‘‘We were sent out of the school on Saturday itself. We are too scared to go back to the beach, where we had houses. Many in the relief camp have gone back to Sreenivasapuram though they have nothing left there,’’ a woman sitting in front of the Santhome Corporation School relief camp said. More than 10 families have stayed back on the pavements near the school and others stay in hutments. ‘‘We are not getting food and other aids since the relief camp has been wounded up and we have to go to nearby hotels for food,’’ said another women. ‘‘We have closed all our relief camps comes under Zone 10. Many of them were set up in schools. When the vacation was over we had to open the schools. Moreover, there were not many left in these relief camps as most have gone back,’’ Chennai Corporation Zonal Officer for Zone 10, Bhuminathan told this website’s newspaper. The situation is the same in all other zones of the Chennai Corporation. According to Corporation sources, relief material supply by the Corporation was stopped on January 3 itself. ‘‘We had two relief camps, which gave shelter to more than 2000 tsunami survivors. But those were closed down two days ago as all the families started moving back to their respective locations,’’ Chennai Corporation Zonal Officer, Murugeshan said. But those camping outside belie the claims of the officials. ‘‘We came out of the camp because officials asked us to move out. Our children and old parents are suffering day in and day out in this difficult weather. They know that the attention of the media on tsunami survivors has come down considerably. That is why they do not want to take care of us now,’’ a fisherman who has lost his wife and his entire earnings charged. Those who used to be tenants in hutments are in greater trouble. They might not be able to claim compensation for their goods washed away as there is no address proof or even ration cards left behind by the waves. Everything will depend on those who rented out the huts to them, but they might not be willing to help out.
As unseemly as it sounds, these well-meaning people have spawned a new industry - disaster tourism. The massive inflow of charitable organisations and aid volunteers to the tsunami-hit areas of Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kerala, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh is what is now being seen as the second giant wave. And overzealous volunteers, obsessed with the need to "do good" are making things worse - in many places. "They are coming in large numbers, with loads of loads of relief material but no idea as to what they need to do," said AID-India volunteer Ravi Shankar, who has taken a break from his teaching assignment at an Indian Institute of Technology. "We call it disaster tourism." Shankar hastened to clarify that help was more than welcome. "We need as many people as we can get, but they have to come with a proper understanding of what they have to do and face." Many of the relief aid workers who jumped on to the bandwagon after the Dec 26 quake-triggered tsunamis ravaged the coasts of south and southeast India found themselves hopelessly out of sorts in "Ground Zero". Said Sanchita, an advertising professional: "People should know that all relief workers must take immunisation and antibiotics as a precaution against epidemics." More advice for wannabe volunteers, coming from those who learnt the hard way -- be equipped with disaster overall suits, sleeping bags, safety helmets, gloves, water-proof boots, masks, mosquito repellents and first aid boxes. "Most volunteers do not want to dirty their heels in the muck," remarked Shankar, referring to the elaborate precautions listed for the aid workers. As one volunteer observes, the eagerness to give and help has not really helped. More often than not, it is like the act of washing one's sins. Old clothes, now forming another type of trash heap in the battered districts, has become the biggest yet most useless display of compassion for the tsunami victims. "Organisations are just collecting tonnes of old clothes and dumping it," says N.K. Singh, spokesman for the International Red Cross Society. The glut of clothes is forming another kind of debris in the battered districts. Singh said: "When a crisis happens, we get a chance to get rid of our old clothes and also salve our conscience. But we underestimate the victims, most of whom are too proud to wear hand-me-downs." Some of these do-gooders have gone on a spree to "adopt-a-village". "Often that means they take care of one afternoon meal for a village, spend perhaps a day and disappear, leaving giant banners to advertise their deed," said a relief worker from Mumbai who is working in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. Banners and posters cover relief trucks and walls in and around villages, often advertising that an organisation has "adopted the village". Some nomadic agencies are wont to swamp the affected villages with relief material, then move off without looking back. When relief trucks come calling, a huge crowd gathers around them and a fight usually ensues over packets of food grain, medicine and utensils. The winners are those with muscles or belonging to a higher caste. Said Shankar: "Unless there is proper coordination and sincerity, I am afraid relief workers will end up doing good to none but themselves." 10.
The global political fault line, The Hindu, Editorial dated 13/1/05 11. Fears follow fury: Shut traffickers from tsunami widows & orphans, The Statesman dated 19/1/05 A new insecurity has emerged from the ocean of destitution. Children orphaned by the tsunami and young women who lost their husbands are feared to be under the rapacity of society. The chairman of National Human Rights Commission, a former chief justice of India, who has seen society through its swirl of crime and violation, has urged the government to set up a system tasked to prevent children and young widows from being exploited by “vultures looking out to fish in troubled waters.” Pointing out the scale of the trade of trafficking, which reduces humans to “cattle or commodity,” he has asked the government and non-governmental sectors to work on a war footing. While food, tents and blankets are what occupy the attention of relief-givers and state agencies, this new menace has to be factored in while looking after the vulnerable. Hundreds of thousands of people must have lost their homes, a large section of them being adult male members, and tens of thousands children may well be without natural guardians. Derangement of social security is the consequence of such calamities. Turning down the offers of international aid for the disaster marks a watershed in how India cope when in difficulty. This economic self-assurance of the country should also be matched by its advanced social concerns. Gone are days when human trafficking was unorganised and could not have thought to prey on the victims of natural disasters. Pointers to such possibilities of exploitation in other tsunami-hit parts of the world are notable. In Sri Lanka reports have emerged from refugee centres about people seeking to buy children from centre supervisors; Aceh similarly reports people falsely claiming to be relatives of such destitute children. India is no stranger to unscrupulous vultures who prey on social derangement that follows calamities. Increased trafficking in humans bears out the fears of the NHRC chairman. Protection from the sea will take fresh foray into our lackadaisically applied science of warning and evacuation, but prevention of further and worse damage to human lives must be immediate. The sea has already inspired deep fear. The psychological devastation which requires, more than psychiatric counselling, needs building up an atmosphere of security for the already battered psyches. Building a whole system to such ends means walking a long way — a small fraction of which is preparing computerised lists of orphans and widows.
12. Tirunelveli fishermen await assistance, The Hindu dated 24/1/05. By
Our Staff Reporter
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