Monday, January 10 2005 13:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Cuddalore (TN): With the trauma of "Black Sunday" still fresh in the minds of the people of this fishing town in south-eastern Tamil Nadu, they are chagrined at, what officials in Cuddalore describe as "disaster tourism", involving clicking photographs of the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami disaster.

Describing it as a "lifetime opportunity", people from across the country, loaded with digital cameras, are busy clicking the pathetic condition of the locals - a cause of annoyance for the victims.

"These tourists are coming in big cars, wearing masks and loaded with latest cameras to capture post-tsunami images," Project Officer for Women's Development Corporation Nirmala Ramanathan said today (Jan 10, 2005).

"They click pictures of uprooted trees, fishing nets tangled in bushes and villagers who have lost a family member. And once the job is done, they leave without delay," she said.

Ramanathan said that visitors to this town, about 20 kms south of Pondicherry, are mainly students of disaster management and those doing research, besides tourists eager to register in mind as also film the devastation.

Such tourists have earned the disapproval of the local people, she said.

"Sometimes a team of people from a different State bearing relief materials from their organisation would insist on skipping the district administration and reaching the supplies to the people themselves, which would result in fist fights and scuffles among the villagers who have lost all belongings," said D Jagannadhan, Project Officer of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and the appointed coordinator for distribution of relief goods.

"At the village of Sonnankuppam, a team from Madhya Pradesh carrying a truckload of essential items skipped the village they were sent to by the DRDA, simply because they did not find the people there 'needy enough'," Ramanathan said.

"A fortnight has passed after the tsunami, relief workers have cleared most of the debris and all the dead bodies have been buried. These fishermen were once sufficiently affluent and well fed. How will they look 'needy enough' all of a sudden to qualify for relief materials?" she asked.

"I have seen 15-20 such cases when the people have brought materials that are foreign to the villagers who have rejected it. The workers had simply dumped these items in the villages and gone away, which the administration ultimately had to clear up," Jagannadhan said.

"Out-of-towners call up and ask if it is safe to travel on the Beach Road, which is close to the shore in Cuddalore fearing a tsunami to creep up any time. Despite the bodies having been cleared up they insist on wearing face masks," he complained.

The villagers, who are slowly returning to normal life, said they have collected the same item three or four times from NGOs that gave them relief materials.

"The media was here as long as the water was there to take visuals and comments, now that the huts are in the slow and boring process of being reconstructed, they have left," said an angry villager at the Sonnankuppam village, around 10 kms from Cuddalore town.