Day 4 – A Day of Disaster

How can one sum up pain, suffering, destruction, and death in a single stroke? Tsunami

Today I took a 4 hour ride in distance and an 11 month ride back in time. I visited the coastal

towns of Velanganni ( Link to outside web info about Tsumami )  and Nagaputtinham in one of the hardest hit areas in India. It was a rainy day

 and there were many portions of the district that were flooded. The dismal weather and the

scenes of destruction gave me images of what the relief workers would have seen on arrival after the wave.

The only things missing were the bodies and the remains, if any, of the houses.

One would have to have a hardened heart to not be moved by what I saw.

I hadn’t slept much when 4 o’clock arrived. I got up and prepared for the trip.

The car actually came at 5:40. John was driving again. He had picked us up at the train station.

There were 4 in the back seat until we reached Maniparai, ( Link to India's National Newspaper, the Hindu and Tamil Nadu) 

about 11 km. We filled the tank anddropped a fellow off. The fill up of 42 litres cost R857.65 (about $25). 

That’s around R20 per litre or 53 cents a litre. HUH??

We stopped for breakfast – somewhere -. Eating in a restaurant is a challenge. Isaac

ordered for me and I had, really I have no idea, but it all was good. Not as delicious as

Isabella’s but good. It had started to rain, hard. John drove the car into the entrance of the restaurant so

we wouldn’t get wet. People who were standing there just moved out of the way. We headed off again.

It kept raining hard. Isaac told me that they were expecting a cyclone in the area. I told him that I had

never had one but was sure that my immunization shots would help. Things don’t translate well – he looked puzzled.

As we approached Velanganni that had been severely damaged by the tsunami, we noticed that the fields

 were flooding. We were about 9km from the city. Isaac said that this is a tidal area and that the tsunami

actually came this far inland. Further on we encountered the road starting to flood over. The homes were of

reed construction and would never withstand something that terrible. We finally entered the city around 12 noon.

Several of the streets were flooded and we had to detour around them.

The waterfront area was flat with no protection. Although I can’t imagine what type of protection

would be sufficient. They have put in a breakwater but it was far too little and definitely too late. You can

easily see how vulnerable they were to the destructive power that was unleashed against them.

With little or no warning they and their homes were swept away. Rich or poor, if you lived there before

 you didn’t afterwards. People, homes, buildings, and boats - they were all swept away in an instant.

My heart sank. Even after almost a year the evidence still exists. “Tragic” doesn’t even come close in describing the event.

We toured the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health. It was downtown and had a large number of people

hiding inside when the tsunami struck. Apparently it was the only structure in the city that was not inundated

with seawater. It is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Tamil Nadu. It was built by the Portuguese.

Then we toured more destruction in Nagapattinam just up the coast. The damaged fishing boats were lined up

 in a storage area. Hundreds of them. The life blood of so many people. The pictures that I took do not reflect the

 devastation inflicted on these people. They have lost their livelihood if not their lives. And the poor people

suffered the most, as usual.

On our way home we stopped in Kumbakonam ( Click for the temples of Tamil Nadu ...including Kumbakonam )

to visit Elango, an old friend of Isaac’s. He is the managerof a large sugar processing plant. The road,

 if you can call it that was the car wrecking type. You never venturedinto a puddle, of which there were legion, 

because you had no idea how deep it was. I am convinced that some hadno bottom. It was like slaloming down a

 black diamond run in Whistler. When we arrived we tried to enter the plant through the main gate but were

 halted by the guards. After a few calls we were re-directed to another gate also with guards. This is the area 

where Elango lives. We were welcomed by Elango and went inside where we were treated to snacks followed by dinner. 

This is becoming habit forming.

After suitable blessings and goodbyes off we went to Tiruchirapalli to visit another friend of Isaac’s (he has a lot of them).

She is a Sister in a girl’s school. To get there we went up a narrow street which had “One Way Do Not Enter”

on it then turned down another street, the wrong way and entered the school. Isaac had called ahead to ask her to pick

up some Calling Cards. I need them to call Judy. We met the Nun who was the effective principal. We were offered a drink

and more snacks. It seems to be gastronomically dangerous to be a stranger in India. We finally took our leave and

headed back into town, yes the wrong way on the street.

We eventually got home at 8:00 and I went straight to bed. What a day, from laughter to tears.

I will never forget it nor the people I met nor the people that I would never meet: those poor souls who lost their lives.