 Reuters Photo |
Posted on 12/26/2004 10:33:29 AM PST by TheDon
By Suresh Seshadri
MADRAS (Reuters) - Wailing relatives gathered around dozens of bodies on beaches in southern India on Sunday after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in distant Indonesia killed up to 3,000 people.
|
|
Television showed bodies floating in turbulent, muddy seas off Madras in worst-hit Tamil Nadu, and people carrying bodies in hessian sacks to hospitals while dozens more, including those of young girls, were tossed into lorries.
Officials said at least 1,705 people died in Tamil Nadu and about 300 in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Another 1,000 were feared dead in the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands just off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, near the quake's epicentre.
Vast swathes of countryside were submerged in one of India's worst natural disasters in living memory as heavy waves and winds lashed the coastline, leaving thousands homeless and hundreds of fishermen missing.
"Never in my life I have had such an experience. The whole area has been turned into a cemetery," said Chellappa, a 55-year-old fishermen in Madras.
Hours after the tsunami, loud wails of women pierced the night at a fishermen's village in Madras. Injured and bleeding goats roamed aimlessly among wrecked coconut palms.
A heavy stench of fish, kerosene and dead bodies pervaded the ruins of the village. Household debris including pots and pans, fishing nets, broken televisions and slippers littered the ground.
EERIE SOUND
"I was standing by the seashore when I noticed the sea level rising but I was not concerned then because I only thought it was an unusually high tide," said Chellappa.
"Then I heard an eerie sound that I have never heard before. It was a high pitched sound followed by a deafening roar which seemed to be getting louder. I told everyone to run for their life and I started sprinting inland."
The tsunami, triggered by the world's fifth-largest quake in a century, has killed at least 7,800 people across Asia.
Hundreds of homeless people thronged pavements in Madras, a city of 10 million people, while others fled to higher ground. At least 100 people were killed in the city alone.
"I was taking a bath and before I realised what was happening, seawater had seeped into the bathroom," said another fisherman, Pazhani. "I got so scared that I ran out."
"I was having breakfast with my three children when water started coming into my home. We had to leave everything and run to safety. We don't know what has happened to our TV, radio, utensils," wailed his wife, Lakshmi.
Half-submerged cars and wrecked boats lay on the famed 12-km long Marina Beach in Madras.
"My mother had gone to the seaside to buy fish when the wave came and lifted her," said a dazed Muthulakshmi, a fisherman's wife, standing on a pavement with hundreds of refugees.
"It took an hour for us to go and recover her body. Thank God my husband had not gone to sea as he was unwell."
In Andhra Pradesh, about 400 fishermen were missing and 200 Hindu devotees who had gone to the beach for a holy dip in the morning were feared dead.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil told local television at least 200 people had died in Andhra Pradesh.
A state official in Kerala said at least 92 people had died there. The armed forces have been called in to help in rescue operations at home and in neighbouring Sri Lanka.
"The situation is very grim," the Press Trust of India (news - web sites) quoted police inspector general S.B. Deol saying in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. He told Reuters 300 people were confirmed dead, another 700 feared dead.
He said there had been no contacts with the southernmost islands closest to Indonesia since the tsunami.
Almost 500 tourists were stranded on a rock in the sea off India's southernmost tip, witnesses said.
Tourists take a ferry to the Vivekananda Rock memorial to see the sunrise, but services were halted soon after the tourists landed because of choppy seas, an official said.
Water also entered India's main space centre at Sriharikota, an island off the south coast, but there were no reports of damage, Prabhakar Reddy, a bureaucrat in Andhra Pradesh, said.
Television reports said a nuclear power station in Tamil Nadu had been shut as a precaution but there were no details.
Two oil refineries on the eastern coast were safe and operating normally, according to initial reports, a national government official said.
(Additional reporting by Surojit Gupta, Madhu Soman and N. Ananthanarayanan in New Delhi and Rina Chandran in Bombay)
Sad. Prayers.
check in please. Let us know you are okay. I don't know where your city Pune is...
Prayers for all the good folks who are suffering in India now
Pune is fine. It's on the west coast.
Good update post and good reference map.
Where is Madras, India? My son's future in-laws are there now.
Looks like it would be in the affected area on the east of India. Hopefully, they were on high ground.
Madras is on the east coast. Deep south. Give him a call. Lines probably aren't working though.
Good info in these articles, AM2000, thanks.
If you hit any articles mentioning Cochin, in Kerala province (SW India), please ping me. I have a good friend who lives there.
While it's hard to even picture the macro view of this disaster, having a friend living there makes me postitively myopic. :-/
Pinz
Cochin's on the west coast. I wouldn't be too concerned.
A general view of the scene at the Marina beach in Madras after tidal waves hit the region. Disaster struck just after dawn as a huge earthquake in Indonesia sent tsunamis crashing westwards.(
bttt
Worldwide Earthquake Activity in the Last Seven Days
Large aftershocks continuing:
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/
A car floating after tidal waves hit the region of Madras. Over 8,300 people were killed and thousands more were missing after the most powerful earthquake for 40 years triggered giant tidal waves that slammed into coastal areas across Asia.
A video image shows foreign tourists (C) as they stretcher an injured person along a destroyed beach on Phi Phi island, Thailand December 26, 2004, following a large earthquake. The world's biggest earthquake in 40 years hit south Asia on Sunday, unleashing a tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India and swamped tourist isles in Thailand and the Maldives, killing more than 6,300 people.A wall of water up to 10 metres (30 feet) high triggered by the 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra caused death, chaos and devastation.
I have been following this since it broke on FR in the middle of the night. The only thing that comes to mind is...suppose this happened around Hawaii or California....can you imagine the toll on this nation then? How these people are going to survive and keep any sanity in the next 72 hrs is just something I cannot fathom at the moment.
Is there any information about our folks on Diego Garcia?
http://www.dg.navy.mil/history/frameset.htm
Hopefully we will have plenty of advance warning. Apparently, many of these poor folks did not. There are some absolutely heartbreaking pictures coming out of the affected areas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.