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March 3, 2005
An unparalleled tragedy
Many of the countries that were ravaged by the massive tidal waves had holiday resorts frequented by people from this part of the world. There were quite a number of Pakistanis who were affected by it. The Review managed to trace some of these people and asked them to share their terrifying experiences, writes Shanaz Ramzi
There is little doubt that the havoc wreaked by the tsunamis recently will go down in history as one of the worst natural disasters of all times, shattering lives of a phenomenal number of people over a colossal area.
When the extent of a tragedy is vast, hair-raising stories invariably do the rounds for months on end, especially with the Internet full of news of how so-and-so miraculously escaped death, and by some strange quirk of fate, others had to meet their doom.
However, sadly, as long as the stories are about individuals in far-off lands —- people we have never met or are likely to meet —- they tend to have less impact on us as they seem far from home. However, when you actually meet people from your own country who were witness to the disaster, it makes you not only sit up and take notice, but also realize what a close call this disaster was for so many of us.
The fact is that since many of the countries that were ravaged by the massive tidal waves boast holiday resorts frequented by people from this part of the world, there were quite a number of Pakistanis who were affected by it. This scribe managed to trace some of these people and asked them to share their terrifying experiences.
Kiran Imran, a housewife, was on an annual vacation and was visiting the Maldives with her husband and two children when the tsunami struck. She says, “We normally book two cottages, one for ourselves and one for our children and their maid. This year, luckily for us, the maid was on leave, so I was with my two children when the tidal wave hit our resort early in the morning.”
Mrs Imran recalls, “I was woken up early in the morning by a phone call from the receptionist regarding a pram I had asked for, and was cursing her as I looked out of the French windows overlooking the beach. To my horror, I saw this huge wall of water coming straight at me, and in a second it had crashed through the windows and was flooding our room.
“My husband had gone for a deep-sea diving certificate course, and I was alone with my children, who were by then floating on the mattress. I was panic-stricken and had no idea what to do. My immediate reaction was to go for the door as the water was rising, but the pressure of the water was so great that I hurt my arm trying to open it. So, in desperation, I picked up my children and placed them one on each shoulder without a clue about what to do next.
“Suddenly I heard noises from the neighbouring cottage so I called out for help. A man responded and said he wouldn’t be able to come to my aid. However, when I told him I was stuck alone with two young children, he braved the barrage of water and came through. He pulled out both my children, one at a time, and then rescued me. And would you believe, when my husband finally got back, he had no idea what we had been through!
“The effect of the tidal waves can only be felt at the shores, so those in the deep sea had no idea of what was happening on the beaches. Only when they reached the shore and saw all the people crying out for help, they realized what had occurred.”
Zeba Mukhtar was in Phuket with her husband and father-in-law when the tsunami hit their beach. They had originally intended to take a city tour. She recalls with a shudder that had they taken the tour instead of deciding to rest in their hotel rooms they would have probably been right at the beach at the time the tsunami struck.
She says, “When the tidal waves crashed into our hotel building, the management announced that all guests should start evacuating the lower floors and move to the upper ones. Amazingly, my father-in-law, who is in his eighties was the most active of us and even grabbed a few goodies and drinking water to tide us through, in case we were stranded for a long time. Each time we made it to a higher floor we could see the lower one filling with water. It was nerve shattering. The tidal waves hit twice, and it took a couple of hours for the water to ebb. We were later made to vacate the hotel by a slippery path at the back of the building, where we spotted a bus packed with people.
“We tried to climb in but there was absolute pandemonium and no one was willing to stop for anybody. Ambulances were only ferrying dead bodies or the injured. Finally, a pick-up bus stopped at our request and dropped us off at a higher altitude, from where we managed to get a ride to safety.”
Also in Phuket was Seema Sulaiman, a housewife, along with her husband and two sons. They had reached Phuket just the day before and were staying on the beach when the disaster struck. She says, “The first tremors of the sea quake were felt at 2:30 am, but we were fast asleep then, and didn’t feel anything. The second time, it struck at 4:30 am and we got up suddenly, feeling our beds move under us. We called up the hotel management, but they said it was nothing to worry about, so we went back to sleep.
“Then at about 6:30 we woke up again with a jolt, and I saw with horror from the window that the sea had receded approximately 500 metres. There were lots of people water skiing and lying on the beach and children were collecting shells from the sea shore. All of a sudden, a gigantic wave came straight at them, and before I could absorb the terrifying situation, swallowed them. Hardly had I registered what was happening, when the wave reappeared, spewing dead bodies on the beach.”
Mrs Sulaiman says their family was panic stricken and had no idea what to do. Their room was on the eighth floor and they could see that the water was flooding the ground and first floors. They also knew that it was not safe to be where they were in case the building collapsed. The management of the hotel had apparently made a dart for it, and there was only one representative left in a hotel full of tourists who told them to head for the mountains.
Mrs Sulaiman adds, “We picked up our passports and tickets, left everything else in the room and made our way to the second floor, which had not been flooded till then. There were others crowding there, too. Spotting a ladder standing against a window, we broke the window with it and descended to the ground. Then we waded through the water, which had dead bodies floating in it, until we reached dry land.
“We spent the night at a small guest house and the next day went to the airport, which was another terrible experience. There were distraught people everywhere, wailing for their dead ones or crying for their missing family members. Flights were delayed and the system had generally collapsed. It was obvious that these tourist resorts were simply not equipped to handle such catastrophes.”
All these families are understandably shaken by their terrifying experiences and their close encounters with death. Mrs Imran, in fact, admits that their recent adventure has been so traumatic for her that that she has not been able to let her children out of sight since their return. But, mercifully, these families are all back home and with the passage of time will be able to put their experiences behind them and hopefully treat them as bad memories.
However, our hearts go out to those who have lost their homes and families in this disaster, and there is no doubt that it is going to be difficult for them to put it behind in their lives. The truth is that the psychological dimension of this, the world’s worst natural disaster in living memory, has been overlooked so far both by the media and aid agencies because of the more urgent task at hand of providing shelter and restoring essential services for the hundreds of thousands of people still left homeless.
That is not to say that the individuals and organizations helping are oblivious to the fact that practically every affected family is suffering from immense psychological problems that need to be addressed. It is just that these countries are still reeling so greatly from the after effects of the tsunamis that all energies have so far been concentrated on improving the larger picture.
Sadly, the scale of the destruction is so massive that despite phenomenal foreign aid and relief efforts extended by numerous NGOs, it is estimated that it will take at least three years before there is any semblance of normalcy in the tragedy-struck countries, provided of course, that there is no break in the momentum of the aid coming in.
Take the example of Indonesia alone. The throngs of destitute survivors needing food aid in that country are expected to soar rather than diminish with the passage of time.
Judging by the number of victims currently being fed by the World Food Programme in the country’s Aceh province, aid agencies believe that the enduring deprivation will increase as isolated villages are reached and the economic effects of the disaster become more conspicuous.
So, while the tsunami affected countries are themselves valiantly trying to contend with hunger, diseases, homelessness, unemployment and depression, it is also essential to ward off donor fatigue for a considerably long time to come, otherwise there is no way that these countries will survive.
The recent visit by former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton to Asia’s hardest hit nations by the tsunami –— Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand and Sri Lanka –— will undoubtedly help in keeping media attention on these areas, and promote reconstruction and clean up, but many more high profile visits and interventions will be needed to help these countries.
According to Clinton, the estimated losses of the region as a whole are $11 billion to $12 billion while commitments from governments and individuals are to the tune of $7 billion. We need to join hands globally to sustain the relief efforts and not let the world forget the suffering of these people. It is essential that we remember that we, too, are on a fault line, and this could very well have been us.
A doctor took it upon himself to visit Sri Lanka at his own expense after the country was struck by the giant tidal waves. He was inspired by a function held to aid the Sri Lankan victims, and decided to visit the country and train doctors there to do relief work
Interestingly, there is one Pakistani who was not present in any of the tsunami hit countries when the disaster took place, but who visited one of them soon after, in order to help alleviate the suffering of the victims.
Dr Behrouz Hashim took it upon himself to visit Sri Lanka at his own expense after the country was struck by the giant tidal waves. He seems to have made it his mission to serve victims of natural disasters as he has volunteered his time and energies in the past to help disaster struck countries.
Dr Hashim says, “I was inspired by a Rotary function held to aid the Sri Lankan victims, and visit the country and train doctors there to do relief work.” With an airline representative present at the event, who facilitated in confirming his bookings on the next day’s flight, Hashim says he set off on his own for the island.
Arriving in Colombo late at night and spending it with strangers who were kind enough to offer him hospitality, because a mutual friend had requested them to, Dr Hashim made arrangements to travel to the east coast, the worst hit area of Sri Lanka.
“There were no flights to the east coast, so the question was how to reach there and who to contact once I got there,” said Dr Hashim. Ultimately after arranging a four wheeler, he set off early in the morning the next day, as he was told that it was a seven-hours drive from Colombo to Batticaloa, in the east.
He recalls, “The first 220 km were superb and I traversed them in no time, but the remaining 70 km took seven hours because the roads were all washed away. So, instead of reaching at 10:30 in the morning, as I had envisaged, I arrived at about 4:30 in the evening.”
Spending the night at a hospital in Batticaloa, Dr Hashim left early next morning with a team comprising of a Sri Lankan doctor, a psychologist, a representative of the UNHCR, three nurses and a surgeon. Covering a total of 1,100 km, Hashim visited 16 cities (the southernmost point he visited on the east coast was the town of Komri) including some cities on the west coast.
During his trip, one of the most touching scenes he saw was a train at Ambalangoda that had overturned under the onslaught of the crashing waves, drowning all but two of the 1,000 passengers. One might add that even today, reportedly, aid workers and locals alike are still clearing the rubble along the stretch of coast where the train had derailed.
Dr Hashim says, “It is strange how calamities bring people closer. Sri Lanka’s population is divided into Buddhists, Tamils, Sinhalese, Christians, Hindus and Muslims but the tsunami washed away all the differences, so that no matter what their religion or ethnicity, they were all equally affected and moved. Survivors irrespective of their beliefs have been put up in temples and schools with about 20 people to a room as well as in tents.”
The doctor is full of praise for the efficient manner in which the army and the health department is handling the catastrophe in Sri Lanka. Giving an overview of the current situation, he says, “They have all the medicines perfectly categorized and placed in big boxes, and every time anyone takes a consignment they have to sign for it. All incoming medicines have to go through quarantine before they can be used.
“I had heard while I was on the road that people were suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea, but it wasn’t so. Very few survivors were seriously wounded so there were hardly any surgeries taking place, and most of them were suffering from skin and eye problems. There was a flu epidemic though, and the nation is in a state of depression.”
Dr Hashim is extremely impressed with the army’s security arrangements, and is of the opinion that contrary to the popular belief that child-smuggling is thriving in these devastated areas, orphans are being well taken cared of by the adults.
“Not everyone is allowed to go from one camp to another and all foreigners have to report their entries and exits. They are also working hard to get the roads repaired, for it is difficult to travel even in top quality four wheelers in their current state. Bridges are being erected in a matter of a couple of days.”
Even in such a time of adversity, Hashim has found the Sri Lankans exemplary in their behaviour. He says, “Their literacy rate is more than 88 per cent and you can see that in the general attitude of the populace –- there is no pushing and shoving and everyone stands in a queue patiently waiting to receive aid. They’re quick to say thank you for any help offered and are very loving, caring and civilized people.”
However, the doctor is critical of the unplanned way in which international relief is being provided to the victims. Relief is being offered without researching into the needs and requirements of the people. Hence, everywhere he went he saw rooms piled up with new and second-hand clothes, which no one was using.
Mulling over the situation, he says, “Someone must have collected them, packed them, and then sent them, but they were useless for the Sri Lankans as all they wear is a sarong. Similarly, tons of candles have been sent, but there are no matches as the wood is all wet so they cannot be lit. There are a lot of cooking utensils, but what they really need is cooked food since there is no kerosene or wood for cooking. Also needed are social workers who can speak their language and help combat their depression rather than doctors.”
Dr Hashim is keen to go back to Sri Lanka after raising enough funds to be able to donate at least a thousand small boats to the people, so that they can restart their livelihood of fishing.
There is no doubt that every help that can be offered, even in individual capacities, will make some difference to the tsunami victims. — Shanaz Ramzi
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