Sunday, January 9 2005 19:22 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Knowing about the death and destruction the killer tsunami left in its wake, a group of volunteers which included software techies, paramedics and students from Bangalore decided to collect supplies and headed to affected areas to make sure the contributions actually reached the victims.

The team headed to the temple town of Thiruvarur, about 30 km from Nagapattinam. It was already five days since the tsunamis had displaced thousands along the coast.

The team witnesses heaps and heaps of dumped, neglected clothes (part of the initial relief) as they entered the town. The initial plan was to serve the displaced residents of Nagapattinam, who had taken refuge in a temple. There were about 1000 people in the temple and the authorities there said that there were enough supplies to take care of the people and the municipality is looking after the mammoth task of cleaning up the camp.

With much of the media focussing on the worst-hit areas, people are not being given a sense of other more remote areas which needed immediate attention. Hence, the team decided to go Villanda Mavadi, a village with two fishing colonies, about 6 kms from Velankanni.

As the team reached a make-shift medical camp, there was utter chaos as there was only one doctor and about 400 people waiting to be treated and vaccinated.

The group split into two teams. While one decided to assist the medical team there to co-ordinate testing and vaccinating of hundreds of villagers, the other team headed to the fishing colonies.

One colony with about 20 houses was completely washed away, the other, a market place, with about 200 houses was badly damaged. The team spoke to few fishermen who complained of the relief material being "taken away" by the farmers, who, they say were "least or not at all affected" by the killer waves.

"The problem here seemed three-fold: With most of the relief work concentrated in the worst hit areas, many interior areas were being neglected; too much relief material being had led to much confusion with many of the same people grabbing them; and the fishermen community were minorities in the local Panchayat," said one volunteer belonging to Indiainfo.com.

"The non-fishing community being the majority tried to control the way the relief materials were distributed".

The team next went to Kalar, a major fishing village about five kilometres from Velankanni. Even as the team reached the outskirts of the village, the angry locals (non-fishing community) warned them not to dump clothes.

Authorities confirmed about 200 deaths and several missing in Kalar. The STF (Special Task Force) was deployed in the rescue and relief operation, which was one reason for the orderliness, according to the volunteers. This also helped the other volunteers who were distributing the food supplies and other relief materials.

After realising that most of the children in the village were not vaccinated, the team went around the village looking for children, who still were unaware of the gravity of the situation in which they were forced to live, and got them vaccinated.

Another team headed with the STF jawans who were looking for bodies (even after a week after the disaster) in the interiors of the village. The jawans said that the looters inform them about the bodies in the remote places after taking away most of whatever jewellery is left on it. This they said is also creating a problem in identifying the badly decayed and damaged bodies.

The team scouted the marshy area, behind the fishing colony, in which the jawans and locals had found most of the bodies. According to another volunteer, "after about an hour, of searching we found a badly decomposed body of a woman underneath the thorny bushes."

The jawans said that most of the bodies were being buried without even taking the photographs for the record. This will again give rise to a series of problems for the families of the dead who amidst trying to rebuild their lives have to struggle to get compensation for the departed loved ones in their family.

Now, with "overwhelming" relief pouring from all over the world the Government has to think of giving much-needed long-term rehabilitation. Boats have been destroyed, taking away their only livelihood and, more than immediate relief, they need money to repair boats or build new ones.

A volunteer who spent over four days in the affected areas said, "We have a request for people who want to help the victims, stop sending clothes. People there need help beyond clothes; there are very, very vital things that they need like boats, shelters etc, not your old clothes. Rather than doing any help, your clothes can as well impede the clearing of the debris and even get decomposed leading to diseases."

The immediate attention must be paid to provide special care to hundreds and hundreds of orphaned children for whom life will never be the same again, said the volunteer, who said he felt he had achieved something in life.