Nature Unleashed
25000, the current body count according to BBC at 6 P.M GMT on 27th December. This is probably the worst natural disaster since the plague. 25000 is an optimistic count, though one wishes that it would be a pessimistic one. Ground realities say otherwise. I have stayed in the shores of Phuket, Port Blair, the southern coastline of India and Sri Lanka and if nature had done to these places what it did to the beaches of Chennai, then we are looking at figures that could be many times that number.
Most fishing villages in India as well as Sri Lanka share a common border with the high tide line. Two to three meter waves are capable of creating a disaster of gigantic propositions. The consequences of ten-meter waves are beyond the imagination of human faculties.
Heart wrenching scenes in hospitals, family members unable to come to grips with the loss of their friends and relatives who were playing or walking or just doing what they do on a normal Sunday morning on the shores of their closest beach. A mother screaming at her dead son, asking him to wake up. A fisherman who’s lost his father and brother trying hard to hold back his tears as he talks to a TV reporter. A man sobbing and waiting to retrieve the mortal remains of his daughter and sister. Trembling men and women searching among a sea of bodies for missing relatives.
Fishermen, the usually hardy folks who see tragedies on a regular basis (in this part of the world, at least) were overwhelmed by this gross misbehavior of nature. Many thousands of their ilk missing and many more thousands of relatives killed. Walking through the streets of coastal Chennai, where most fishermen live, one could find ambulances returning the recovered bodies at the rate of at least one per street. Sunday television viewing consisted of gory mass burials for people whose bodies weren’t claimed. When entire families are wiped out who claims the dead?
Holiday makes who were spending their Christmas weekend watching the sunrise beyond the seas in amazingly beautiful places across South East Asia. Churchgoer's singing hymns in churches close to the sea that till this day was their version of god meets nature. Described by most news channels as “a tragedy of biblical propositions” maybe they missed the irony of what happened during the time half the world was celebrating Christmas.
The most capable television crew, or Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent cannot describe what happened on the 26th of December. The scale of destruction cannot be told or absorbed by the people who are used to the biggest of disasters.
With reports yet to come from places like Maldives, that is barely one meter above sea level and other assorted islands that the world has largely ignored till black Sunday, the exceedingly huge loss of human life is beyond the widest imagination.
Blaming any government agencies or NGO’s for the rescue efforts or lack thereof for destruction this massive in scale is slightly beyond stupidity, so let us refrain from doing that. Nature decided to show humans the miniscule importance he/she has in the big canvas of things and succeeded quite well.
The nation that was riveted with the viewing of a mega tiff between two brothers fighting over a massive piece of monetary legacy, intellectual property rights and ‘god men gone wrong’ was brought to a sudden halt with a tragic loss that made all that seem insignificant by comparison.
Contributions to: (And this time there actually exists a fund in this name)
The Prime Ministers Relief fund
New Delhi
India.
Most fishing villages in India as well as Sri Lanka share a common border with the high tide line. Two to three meter waves are capable of creating a disaster of gigantic propositions. The consequences of ten-meter waves are beyond the imagination of human faculties.
Heart wrenching scenes in hospitals, family members unable to come to grips with the loss of their friends and relatives who were playing or walking or just doing what they do on a normal Sunday morning on the shores of their closest beach. A mother screaming at her dead son, asking him to wake up. A fisherman who’s lost his father and brother trying hard to hold back his tears as he talks to a TV reporter. A man sobbing and waiting to retrieve the mortal remains of his daughter and sister. Trembling men and women searching among a sea of bodies for missing relatives.
Fishermen, the usually hardy folks who see tragedies on a regular basis (in this part of the world, at least) were overwhelmed by this gross misbehavior of nature. Many thousands of their ilk missing and many more thousands of relatives killed. Walking through the streets of coastal Chennai, where most fishermen live, one could find ambulances returning the recovered bodies at the rate of at least one per street. Sunday television viewing consisted of gory mass burials for people whose bodies weren’t claimed. When entire families are wiped out who claims the dead?
Holiday makes who were spending their Christmas weekend watching the sunrise beyond the seas in amazingly beautiful places across South East Asia. Churchgoer's singing hymns in churches close to the sea that till this day was their version of god meets nature. Described by most news channels as “a tragedy of biblical propositions” maybe they missed the irony of what happened during the time half the world was celebrating Christmas.
The most capable television crew, or Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent cannot describe what happened on the 26th of December. The scale of destruction cannot be told or absorbed by the people who are used to the biggest of disasters.
With reports yet to come from places like Maldives, that is barely one meter above sea level and other assorted islands that the world has largely ignored till black Sunday, the exceedingly huge loss of human life is beyond the widest imagination.
Blaming any government agencies or NGO’s for the rescue efforts or lack thereof for destruction this massive in scale is slightly beyond stupidity, so let us refrain from doing that. Nature decided to show humans the miniscule importance he/she has in the big canvas of things and succeeded quite well.
The nation that was riveted with the viewing of a mega tiff between two brothers fighting over a massive piece of monetary legacy, intellectual property rights and ‘god men gone wrong’ was brought to a sudden halt with a tragic loss that made all that seem insignificant by comparison.
Contributions to: (And this time there actually exists a fund in this name)
The Prime Ministers Relief fund
New Delhi
India.
posted by Antimatter at 12:08 AM
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