Tsunami...the name sounds as ugly as its deeds
It was a normal sunrise in Kalpakkam...and on 26th December, 2004...it was no better. Everything seemed so normal and any chances of change in nature was so inevetiable. As it was sunday..there was no activity taking place on the roads. I went to the shop near the shore and asked for a cup of tea…., he said it will take some time. That was my nearest brush with death, that shop is no more there. I returned back to my house.
After reading paper...I shaved and started bathing. Thru' the ventilator I heard sounds of people goin here & there...and cud feel something has happened. Kalpakkam is a place where the anxiety level of the people is very high, due to the Nuclear Reactor there. My imagination started running wild. My bother-in-law came with the news that the sea water has started flowing into Kalpakkam. The ground opposite to my house was filled with sludge and one look at it, I decided it was due to some breakage in the sewage pipe. Then we were told that the church and the nearby hospital was damaged. After reaching there, we realized the severity and enormity of the tidal waves. By this time, people were running wild and gave us varying information that the waves have stuck again in the other side of Kalpakkam.
Everybody at the Township was asked to evacuate the place immediately. I, alongwith my brother-in-law moved to Anupuram., enroute to Anupuram, we were witness to what we have only seen in T.V. People moving away from the home afraid of the tidal waves. Generally there was severe lack of information from any authorized source. The authorities in Kalpakkam shud have risen to the occasion and shud have, in any form of communication, communicated to the people not to panic.. In our (me & brother-in-law) case , we were fleeing from lack of information. We are running around listening to the different stories circulated by the people. One set of people claim that water is gushing in the 17th street and other people claim that water has damaged the buildings in the 5th street.
I left Anupuram and immediately made preparations to leave to Chennai. My brother-in-law dropped me at Vengambakkam junction, where I thought I could take the bus to Chennai. All buses coming from Pondicherry were diverted and the buses from & to Kalpakkam were carrying victims affected due to the tidal waves. These people were already passing thru’ harrowing time getting thru’ their regular life. Now this calamity has thrown them off-the-balance. They have all left there belongings and houses and are traveling to relatives / friends house in nearby districts. I got into a bus that was travellling till Chinglepet. I will never forget this 4 hours travel till Chinglepet. Words are not enough to describe the woes faced by this people. Thousands of people were moving around with their family members and materials which they could lay hands. Men & women were wailing and were shell-shocked. They would not have imagined that the people with whom they were talking & laughing the previous night just vanished within a space of few minutes.
As the days go by, the grim and tragic reality of what happened on Sunday morning is becoming apparent. The death toll in the earthquake and the tsunamis which followed is already up to 60,000 and still rising. The relief effort is perhaps the largest the world has ever undertaken.
There is little we can do in the wake of natural disasters. But, as is being discussed, a real-time warning system which tracks exceptional events and indicators, could have made it possible to get the word across to people in the coastal areas. While natural disasters cannot be prevented, technology must be able to play a role in alleviating the human impact of such events.
After reading paper...I shaved and started bathing. Thru' the ventilator I heard sounds of people goin here & there...and cud feel something has happened. Kalpakkam is a place where the anxiety level of the people is very high, due to the Nuclear Reactor there. My imagination started running wild. My bother-in-law came with the news that the sea water has started flowing into Kalpakkam. The ground opposite to my house was filled with sludge and one look at it, I decided it was due to some breakage in the sewage pipe. Then we were told that the church and the nearby hospital was damaged. After reaching there, we realized the severity and enormity of the tidal waves. By this time, people were running wild and gave us varying information that the waves have stuck again in the other side of Kalpakkam.
Everybody at the Township was asked to evacuate the place immediately. I, alongwith my brother-in-law moved to Anupuram., enroute to Anupuram, we were witness to what we have only seen in T.V. People moving away from the home afraid of the tidal waves. Generally there was severe lack of information from any authorized source. The authorities in Kalpakkam shud have risen to the occasion and shud have, in any form of communication, communicated to the people not to panic.. In our (me & brother-in-law) case , we were fleeing from lack of information. We are running around listening to the different stories circulated by the people. One set of people claim that water is gushing in the 17th street and other people claim that water has damaged the buildings in the 5th street.
I left Anupuram and immediately made preparations to leave to Chennai. My brother-in-law dropped me at Vengambakkam junction, where I thought I could take the bus to Chennai. All buses coming from Pondicherry were diverted and the buses from & to Kalpakkam were carrying victims affected due to the tidal waves. These people were already passing thru’ harrowing time getting thru’ their regular life. Now this calamity has thrown them off-the-balance. They have all left there belongings and houses and are traveling to relatives / friends house in nearby districts. I got into a bus that was travellling till Chinglepet. I will never forget this 4 hours travel till Chinglepet. Words are not enough to describe the woes faced by this people. Thousands of people were moving around with their family members and materials which they could lay hands. Men & women were wailing and were shell-shocked. They would not have imagined that the people with whom they were talking & laughing the previous night just vanished within a space of few minutes.
As the days go by, the grim and tragic reality of what happened on Sunday morning is becoming apparent. The death toll in the earthquake and the tsunamis which followed is already up to 60,000 and still rising. The relief effort is perhaps the largest the world has ever undertaken.
There is little we can do in the wake of natural disasters. But, as is being discussed, a real-time warning system which tracks exceptional events and indicators, could have made it possible to get the word across to people in the coastal areas. While natural disasters cannot be prevented, technology must be able to play a role in alleviating the human impact of such events.
posted by vinukv @ 1:50 AM
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