Meredith Billman-Mani lives in Herndon and is a reporter for The McLean and Great Falls Connections. She is a frequent visitor to India and went there in December to finalize the adoption of her daughter, Priyanka. While there she witnessed the tsunami from her home in Chennai, India.
<bt>Dec. 31, 2004 --
The ground shakes and moans during an earthquake. There's actually a millisecond before an earthquake when you can feel the upheaval occur. Skies turn black, and the wind howls like a freight train before a hurricane. Nothing but sunshine, salty air and the laughter of children playing cricket on the beach preceded the tsunami on Dec. 26 that hit Seashoretown Beach.
I wish I could write that the appearance of the tsunami was as terrifying and impactful as the aftermath has been. In actuality, it appeared silently out of nowhere and lasted only a few minutes. By the time people were able to comprehend what was actually happening, it was over. Most of the people in its path failed to comprehend what it was until news reports began detailing the devastation and the ever increasing death toll.
My family never felt or heard anything, and our house lies just a few thousand feet from the Bay of Bengal in Seashoretown, on the outskirts of Chennai. There are only seven empty plots of land between us and the waterfront.
On the beach there were two fishermen's villages about a mile apart on either side. Those villages were just grass huts and fishing boats. The huts and boats were among the first things swallowed by the ocean when the tsunami hit.
I WAS ON THE SECOND FLOOR with my 17-month-old daughter, Priyanka, when the first indication that something was wrong happened. Looking out the balcony, I saw groups of people running toward the road. I immediately thought it was some type of mischief and went downstairs. Once in the kitchen, I heard yelling all around me from the house to our right and from the caretakers who live in grass huts on the vacant plots. "The water is coming, the water is coming,"was all the old villager woman outside was saying. My mother-in-law and I looked at each other and quickly decided that some of the villagers building a house down by the ocean must have dug too deep and broken open a spring. At the time that's the only thing that made sense. A tsunami was not within our realm of possibility.
Then I started seeing water break through the walls, and I knew something was seriously wrong. It's one of those moments when you can't intellectualize that something is terribly, terribly wrong and your life is in danger. But a basic fight-or-flight instinct kicks in, and you know it's time to go.
The difficult thing is your instinct is to get "out"of the house and be in the open, not to go up and be trapped. I'm an East Coast girl, and the sage advice during an emergency situation has always been to get low and stay low. You have to go against that in a situation like this. It's made even more difficult by the fact that you do not have a category for the situation you find yourself in. Hundreds of things run through your head very quickly. I evaluated the merits of "stop, drop and roll and get under the door frame,"before deciding my best vantage point was up.
SO, I WENT WITH MY WHOLE FAMILY to the second floor to watch the water like a spectator. It was a quick move upstairs, but very much like in slow motion, like driving by a bad car accident and you just have to look to see what happened.
Nearly as quickly as it came, however, the water and the wave had receded. Everyone was dazed and left to look at each other and wonder, "What the hell was that?"The electricity then went out, and we would not have the answer to that question for several hours.
Our beachfront and villagers were luckier than most other areas in the state. Because it was after the morning fishing hours, the boats had long since returned, and the villagers were inland selling the fish or doing routine daily chores. However, two young boys from the village huts were swept away, and a group of boys from out of town who were playing cricket on the beach were all taken by the tsunami.
The death toll in the state of Tamil Nadu stands at 6,202 and in Chennai the loss of life now totals 199 people. Tamil Nadu is roughly the size of the United Kingdom. India's regions are broken down into states similar to that of America, with cities and town within each state.
From the people I've talked to who were on the beach, the tsunami didn't come as one giant wave and hit the beach head on. People on the beach say the water level quickly rose about 10 feet. Then, from the south, came the wave. Laksmi Thygarajan lives in Seashoretown and was on the beach the morning the tsunami hit. "Something was not right. The water did not look right, and then I saw the others running, and I ran too. We did not know what was happening, but we ran and did not stop,"Thygarajan recalled, through an interpreter (my mother-in-law).
THYGARAJAN DOES NOT go near the water now and doesn't let her family go on the beach side of the road without her. Of her husband she says, "He does not run fast and he cannot swim, so I must go with him [to protect him]."
Brateep Philips works for the Tamil Nadu Police Department and authored the Emergency Preparedness Statement for the state. "It happened very quickly. There was no warning, but I think the response was quite good. Nothing really could have been done differently, because we are not a part of the warning system for these kinds of things,"said Philips.
ÓThings here have not been so bad. Just a few kilometers down the road, the town is gone, everything wiped out. People were jogging on the beach. There was a congregation having service on the beach for Christmas and many children. They are all gone now, and we are just finding bodies,"said Philips.
One of the biggest worries now, according to Phillips, is an outbreak of disease. There is a lack of sanitation available, and villagers are openly defecating on the beach and in more urban areas. The lack of clean drinking water also poses a health risk. Cholera, diarrhea and malaria are all expected in the near future because of the tsunami.
Natasha Neilson, an American who has called Chennai home for three years, lives on the first house on the beach, one street over from mine. She was home alone when the tsunami hit her bungalow. "It was the front wall that saved us,"said Neilson of the 2-foot-by-6-foot rock walls that surround each plot of land. "It kept the water out for a long time, and then it finally gave way. If it hadn't been there, things would have been a lot worse. Now we just have to deal with the cleanup. We don't have electricity, and our well is contaminated with sea water."It is expected to take several months to repair her home.
MANY OF THE BORDER WALLS in our subdivision toppled over like they were made of sugar, instead of large rocks and cement. According to Philips, that's because the majority of the devastation wrought by the tsunami is not from the wave coming onto land but from going out.
"It's like if you are standing in the water and a small wave comes to you. It does not knock you over or hurt you. But, when that wave goes out, the sand and the particles around your feet begin to pull away underneath you, and you begin to sink. That is what happened, hundreds of times more, with the tsunami,"said Philips.
Neilson was able to escape the tsunami by fleeing her bungalow and climbing into the servants quarters behind the house, which are on a higher level. The rumor around town was that she climbed the rickety old ladder to the top of the water tower while holding her infant son.
In the wake of the tsunami, rumors are high currency around Chennai. Without televisions or much to do during the daytime, people talk, and rumors spread quickly.
Talk is cheap, and there is little else for the displaced villagers to do without their boats and grass huts. The main road is dotted with villagers camped out waiting for assistance and afraid to return to the beach. The main fear is that it will happen again.
The look in the eyes of these people is haunting. They sit hunched in the dirt beside the road with the blank expression of endless patience known only to the underprivileged who have come to expect nothing. There's no Nirvana in their patience; it just looks like they have had expectation beaten out of them by a hard and unforgiving life and now sit unbelieving that anyone will reach out and help them start over.
It is estimated that 75,000 fishermen's huts were destroyed in the disaster. That equates to roughly 50 percent of the fishermen's huts in the state. Most of these fishermen also lost their vallams and catamarans -- the boats they use to catch fish, most often by casting wide, homemade nets.
Fishing vessels that weren't plunged meters into the sea were cast far inland and often destroyed on impact. The fishing trade is expected to all but come to a halt in the state, leaving thousands homeless and unemployed until the boats can be rebuilt and the fishermen can return to their livelihood.
SOME VILLAGERS temporarily took up living in vacant plots within the subdivision for security. Others went as far inland as they could and are staying there until the government assures them it is safe to return to the beach.
That might not be any time soon. In the days after the tsunami, an earthquake on the Andaman Islands produced a tidal wave on the beach, which struck fresh terror into the villagers. The subtle nuances between a tsunami and a tidal wave are lost on the villagers, who are, for the most part, uneducated. For that matter, they were lost on the most educated members of the beach community.
Shortly before New Year's Day, the Union Home Ministry announced there would be a second tsunami and gave a 48-hour watch period. That sent people into a government-sanctioned panic. News reports later in the day attempted to quell people's fears by saying it was an error. However, police cruisers stationed around town led people to believe the earlier reports and not the correction.
The beach is now littered with unbelievable amounts of blue and clear plastic as far as the eye can see. Each bit of trash looks like it could tell a story. Like it should tell a story. It's as though it were ripped from someone's life and placed on the shore to be found. Tubes of toothpaste mix with homemade baskets and saris to make the beachcomber wonder what happened to these people who lost their possessions. Then it hits you. Are these things even from here, or did the sea bring them from another place, another country even?.
And then there is the smell of decay that has taken over. It smells something like Bethany Beach in late summer when all the jelly fish have washed ashore dead and dying. There seems to be a presence to the beach as well. There's a black pall hanging over the sand that has a weight to it.
IT IS A DAUNTING TASK to begin to calculate how best to help those affected by the tsunami. Even on this beach, where the damage was minimal compared with other beaches, the people need help. Most of all what they appear to need is assurances that this was a freak of nature and that life can return to normal. Then they need financial assistance to rebuild the infrastructure.
"Nine/11 was a tragedy, not just for the American people. We felt it here as well,"said Philips. "But it was a manmade tragedy. There was someone to be angry at and to seek revenge on, wasn't there? With this, who do the people blame? You can't blame God. There are no answers. People here do not look for them,"Philips said.
My mother-in-law, Uma Mani, is typical of many Indians these days. She is glued in horror and sadness to the news, watching the death toll rise and hearing the horrific tales of those who escaped and those who lost loved ones in the tragedy. She is struck by the price paid by those least able to afford it. "Why is it always the poor who suffer? They have nothing, and then even their children are taken away,"said Uma Mani.
India is a land of deep cultural beliefs and hard-fought independence. Visitors are often assaulted by the smells, sounds and colors of India and fail to see beyond that. Certainly there is poverty here, poverty that is far more visible than in the United States. But there is great wealth, too. India's riches lie not with its rupees or its gold but in its people and their ability to nurture life in infertile soil.
There is a weed that grows on the beaches of Tamil Nadu that illustrates this strength and grit. It's a long, scraggly weed that looks like a vine, and no one seems to know the name of it. It spreads like wildflowers all over the beach and sets out a profusion of lavender and white flowers that resemble morning glories.
A week after the tsunami hit the beach; these flowers are blooming again -- in the same sand with the same purpose.Ê
frequent visitor to India and went there in December to finalize the adoption of her daughter, Priyanka. While there she witnessed the tsunami from her home in Chennai, India.
<bt>Dec. 31, 2004Ê
The ground shakes and moans during an earthquake. ThereÕs actually a millisecond before an earthquake when you can feel the upheaval occur. Skies turn black, and the wind howls like a freight train before a hurricane. Nothing but sunshine, salty air and the laughter of children playing cricket on the beach preceded the tsunami on Dec. 26 that hit Seashoretown Beach.
I wish I could write that the appearance of the tsunami was as terrifying and impactful as the aftermath has been. In actuality, it appeared silently out of nowhere and lasted only a few minutes. By the time people were able to comprehend what was actually happening, it was over. Most of the people in its path failed to comprehend what it was until news reports began detailing the devastation and the ever increasing death toll.
My family never felt or heard anything, and our house lies just a few thousand feet from the Bay of Bengal in Seashoretown, on the outskirts of Chennai. There are only seven empty plots of land between us and the waterfront.
On the beach there were two fishermenÕs villages about a mile apart on either side. Those villages were just grass huts and fishing boats. The huts and boats were among the first things swallowed by the ocean when the tsunami hit.
I WAS ON THE SECOND FLOOR with my 17-month-old daughter, Priyanka, when the first indication that something was wrong happened. Looking out the balcony, I saw groups of people running toward the road. I immediately thought it was some type of mischief and went downstairs. Once in the kitchen, I heard yelling all around me from the house to our right and from the caretakers who live in grass huts on the vacant plots. ÒThe water is coming, the water is coming,Ó was all the old villager woman outside was saying. My mother-in-law and I looked at each other and quickly decided that some of the villagers building a house down by the ocean must have dug too deep and broken open a spring. At the time thatÕs the only thing that made sense. A tsunami was not within our realm of possibility.
Then I started seeing water break through the walls, and I knew something was seriously wrong. ItÕs one of those moments when you canÕt intellectualize that something is terribly, terribly wrong and your life is in danger. But a basic fight-or-flight instinct kicks in, and you know it's time to go.
The difficult thing is your instinct is to get ÒoutÓ of the house and be in the open, not to go up and be trapped. I'm an East Coast girl, and the sage advice during an emergency situation has always been to get low and stay low. You have to go against that in a situation like this. ItÕs made even more difficult by the fact that you do not have a category for the situation you find yourself in. Hundreds of things run through your head very quickly. I evaluated the merits of Òstop, drop and roll and get under the door frame,Ó before deciding my best vantage point was up.
SO, I WENT WITH MY WHOLE FAMILY to the second floor to watch the water like a spectator. It was a quick move upstairs, but very much like in slow motion, like driving by a bad car accident and you just have to look to see what happened.
Nearly as quickly as it came, however, the water and the wave had receded. Everyone was dazed and left to look at each other and wonder, ÒWhat the hell was that?Ó The electricity then went out, and we would not have the answer to that question for several hours.
Our beachfront and villagers were luckier than most other areas in the state. Because it was after the morning fishing hours, the boats had long since returned, and the villagers were inland selling the fish or doing routine daily chores. However, two young boys from the village huts were swept away, and a group of boys from out of town who were playing cricket on the beach were all taken by the tsunami.
The death toll in the state of Tamil Nadu stands at 6,202 and in Chennai the loss of life now totals 199 people. Tamil Nadu is roughly the size of the United Kingdom. India's regions are broken down into states similar to that of America, with cities and town within each state.
From the people I've talked to who were on the beach, the tsunami didnÕt come as one giant wave and hit the beach head on. People on the beach say the water level quickly rose about 10 feet. Then, from the south, came the wave. Laksmi Thygarajan lives in Seashoretown and was on the beach the morning the tsunami hit. ÒSomething was not right. The water did not look right, and then I saw the others running, and I ran too. We did not know what was happening, but we ran and did not stop,Ó Thygarajan recalled, through an interpreter (my mother-in-law).
THYGARAJAN DOES NOT go near the water now and doesnÕt let her family go on the beach side of the road without her. Of her husband she says, ÒHe does not run fast and he cannot swim, so I must go with him [to protect him].Ó
Brateep Philips works for the Tamil Nadu Police Department and authored the Emergency Preparedness Statement for the state. ÒIt happened very quickly. There was no warning, but I think the response was quite good. Nothing really could have been done differently, because we are not a part of the warning system for these kinds of things,Ó said Philips.
ÓThings here have not been so bad. Just a few kilometers down the road, the town is gone, everything wiped out. People were jogging on the beach. There was a congregation having service on the beach for Christmas and many children. They are all gone now, and we are just finding bodies,Ó said Philips.
One of the biggest worries now, according to Phillips, is an outbreak of disease. There is a lack of sanitation available, and villagers are openly defecating on the beach and in more urban areas. The lack of clean drinking water also poses a health risk. Cholera, diarrhea and malaria are all expected in the near future because of the tsunami.
Natasha Neilson, an American who has called Chennai home for three years, lives on the first house on the beach, one street over from mine. She was home alone when the tsunami hit her bungalow. ÒIt was the front wall that saved us,Ó said Neilson of the 2-foot-by-6-foot rock walls that surround each plot of land. ÒIt kept the water out for a long time, and then it finally gave way. If it hadnÕt been there, things would have been a lot worse. Now we just have to deal with the cleanup. We donÕt have electricity, and our well is contaminated with sea water.Ó It is expected to take several months to repair her home.
MANY OF THE BORDER WALLS in our subdivision toppled over like they were made of sugar, instead of large rocks and cement. According to Philips, that's because the majority of the devastation wrought by the tsunami is not from the wave coming onto land but from going out.
ÒItÕs like if you are standing in the water and a small wave comes to you. It does not knock you over or hurt you. But, when that wave goes out, the sand and the particles around your feet begin to pull away underneath you, and you begin to sink. That is what happened, hundreds of times more, with the tsunami,Ó said Philips.
Neilson was able to escape the tsunami by fleeing her bungalow and climbing into the servants quarters behind the house, which are on a higher level. The rumor around town was that she climbed the rickety old ladder to the top of the water tower while holding her infant son.
In the wake of the tsunami, rumors are high currency around Chennai. Without televisions or much to do during the daytime, people talk, and rumors spread quickly.
Talk is cheap, and there is little else for the displaced villagers to do without their boats and grass huts. The main road is dotted with villagers camped out waiting for assistance and afraid to return to the beach. The main fear is that it will happen again.
The look in the eyes of these people is haunting. They sit hunched in the dirt beside the road with the blank expression of endless patience known only to the underprivileged who have come to expect nothing. ThereÕs no Nirvana in their patience; it just looks like they have had expectation beaten out of them by a hard and unforgiving life and now sit unbelieving that anyone will reach out and help them start over.
It is estimated that 75,000 fishermen's huts were destroyed in the disaster. That equates to roughly 50 percent of the fishermenÕs huts in the state. Most of these fishermen also lost their vallams and catamarans Ñ the boats they use to catch fish, most often by casting wide, homemade nets.
Fishing vessels that werenÕt plunged meters into the sea were cast far inland and often destroyed on impact. The fishing trade is expected to all but come to a halt in the state, leaving thousands homeless and unemployed until the boats can be rebuilt and the fishermen can return to their livelihood.
SOME VILLAGERS temporarily took up living in vacant plots within the subdivision for security. Others went as far inland as they could and are staying there until the government assures them it is safe to return to the beach.
That might not be any time soon. In the days after the tsunami, an earthquake on the Andaman Islands produced a tidal wave on the beach, which struck fresh terror into the villagers. The subtle nuances between a tsunami and a tidal wave are lost on the villagers, who are, for the most part, uneducated. For that matter, they were lost on the most educated members of the beach community.
Shortly before New YearÕs Day, the Union Home Ministry announced there would be a second tsunami and gave a 48-hour watch period. That sent people into a government-sanctioned panic. News reports later in the day attempted to quell peopleÕs fears by saying it was an error. However, police cruisers stationed around town led people to believe the earlier reports and not the correction.
The beach is now littered with unbelievable amounts of blue and clear plastic as far as the eye can see. Each bit of trash looks like it could tell a story. Like it should tell a story. ItÕs as though it were ripped from someoneÕs life and placed on the shore to be found. Tubes of toothpaste mix with homemade baskets and saris to make the beachcomber wonder what happened to these people who lost their possessions. Then it hits you. Are these things even from here, or did the sea bring them from another place, another country even?.
And then there is the smell of decay that has taken over. It smells something like Bethany Beach in late summer when all the jelly fish have washed ashore dead and dying. There seems to be a presence to the beach as well. ThereÕs a black pall hanging over the sand that has a weight to it.
IT IS A DAUNTING TASK to begin to calculate how best to help those affected by the tsunami. Even on this beach, where the damage was minimal compared with other beaches, the people need help. Most of all what they appear to need is assurances that this was a freak of nature and that life can return to normal. Then they need financial assistance to rebuild the infrastructure.
ÒNine/11 was a tragedy, not just for the American people. We felt it here as well,Ó said Philips. ÒBut it was a manmade tragedy. There was someone to be angry at and to seek revenge on, wasnÕt there? With this, who do the people blame? You canÕt blame God. There are no answers. People here do not look for them,Ó Philips said.
My mother-in-law, Uma Mani, is typical of many Indians these days. She is glued in horror and sadness to the news, watching the death toll rise and hearing the horrific tales of those who escaped and those who lost loved ones in the tragedy. She is struck by the price paid by those least able to afford it. ÒWhy is it always the poor who suffer? They have nothing, and then even their children are taken away,Ó said Uma Mani.
India is a land of deep cultural beliefs and hard-fought independence. Visitors are often assaulted by the smells, sounds and colors of India and fail to see beyond that. Certainly there is poverty here, poverty that is far more visible than in the United States. But there is great wealth, too. India's riches lie not with its rupees or its gold but in its people and their ability to nurture life in infertile soil.
There is a weed that grows on the beaches of Tamil Nadu that illustrates this strength and grit. ItÕs a long, scraggly weed that looks like a vine, and no one seems to know the name of it. It spreads like wildflowers all over the beach and sets out a profusion of lavender and white flowers that resemble morning glories.
A week after the tsunami hit the beach; these flowers are blooming again Ñ in the same sand with the same purpose.Ê