Andamany i Nikobary po tsunami

[uma.marina]

Indyjskie centra nasłuchowe i bazy wojskowe utrudniają przekazywanie pomocy
ofiarom tsunami.

From: Intercessors Network [[e-mail]]
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 1:43 AM
To: Intercessors Network
Subject: Wave of anger in anguished islands

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Also in this issue:
One mother’s search for her children

Wave of anger in anguished islands

Tempers flared over the sluggish pace of relief efforts in the remote and
restricted Andaman and Nicobar on Sunday as hundreds of bodies lay scattered
around the islands a week after the tsunami struck.
A local government officer was manhandled by people angry at not getting
relief supplies in Campbell Bay, the main town in the southernmost island of
Great Nicobar, where widespread devastation has been reported. Police had to
send reinforcements.
"The situation in Campbell Bay and Great Nicobar is very grim," a senior
island administration official said in Port Blair, the region’s capital city.
A group of more than 700 people remained camped on a hilltop on the island on
the southernmost tip of the archipelago where they fled to escape the
waves. "Absolutely nothing has reached them," the official said.

The chain of more than 500 islands, most of them uninhabited, lie 1,200 km
(800 miles) east off the Indian mainland and are dotted with military bases
and listening posts.
Also home to hundreds of stone age tribespeople, many of the islands are off
limits to foreigners and mainland Indians alike. Mistrust of outsiders by the
military and local bureaucracy has compounded the practical difficulties of
the aid effort.
Aid workers from foreign relief groups Medicins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam
have languished in Port Blair, unable to reach the badly hit southern
islands. Indian Christian groups complain local officials were hindering
their attempts to take aid to the tribes, many of whom are Christian.
"We have been sitting here in Port Blair trying to send 100 volunteers... to
Car Nicobar and other badly hit islands," said an official of the Church of
North India, an association of churches involved in relief. "But the
administration is refusing to allow us access to some regions and this is
extremely frustrating."

Authorities in New Delhi say there are 812 confirmed deaths in the entire
chain but the country’s army chief told reporters that in the worst-hit
island of Car Nicobar alone, more than 1,000 corpses lay scattered. India
raised its tsunami toll to 14,488 dead or feared dead on Sunday including
5,421 missing on the islands.
Most islands can only be reached by sea but last Sunday’s monster waves
destroyed jetties. Rescue workers have been using small boats to land, but
many inland roads are not cleared. Authorities say they are getting their act
together.

"The momentum is picking up slowly, there are difficulties, bodies have to be
spotted, identified," Army chief NC Vij told reporters. The army is using
sniffer dogs to find victims.
Authorities have started vaccinating survivors against cholera, typhoid and
tetanus. "The main concern remains the threat of epidemic and the process of
removing bodies continues," said brigadier JM Devados, the overall relief
commander for the Car Nicobar island, where thousands are dead or missing.
"Twelve of 15 villages have been washed away. Villages are ghost villages."

Sitting astride vital trade routes heading west from the straits of Malacca,
the islands offer India a vital foothold in South-East Asia and a counter to
Chinese influence in the region.
Ruled directly from New Delhi, the islands housed a notorious jail during
British colonial rule. Critics say the welfare of locals is low on New
Delhi’s priorities.
"Times have changed but not mindsets," a leading Indian national daily wrote
on Sunday. "The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is a collective second class
citizen. Welcome to India’s in-house colony," it said.

But amid the palpable grief, there were a few moments of joy. In the
Andamans, a couple and their six-month-old baby lived off coconut water for
three days before a military helicopter rescued them.

One mother’s search for her children
By Jonathan Charles

A desperate mother continues her desperate search. Zaira Banu gets up at six
o’clock every morning to spend yet another day going from camp to camp
looking for her missing children.
Resting for a few minutes, she told me she hasn’t seen her five-year-old son,
three-year-old daughter and two-year-old boy since disaster struck, the
moment a wall of water consumed the island of Car Nicobar, shattering her
happy existence.

She says to me: "When the first wave came we were all together.
"Then there was a second and I couldn’t see them anymore.
"I held on to a coconut tree for 24 hours, up to my neck in water.
"Then I was rescued by a helicopter but there was no sign of my children."
Zaira has listed the names of her children and other missing family members
to hand out around the camps.
She has no photos - they and everything else she had were washed away.

Nowhere to go

Car Nicobar lies close to the epicentre of the earthquake which triggered the
powerful sea surges, and has suffered more than most.
It was hit on all sides, first of all by the earthquake and then by the waves
which came inshore.
Even at its highest point the island is only 12 metres above sea level, so
when the massive waves came in with the sea surge, there was nowhere for
people to go to reach ground higher than water level.

The Indian government is now managing to land planes full of relief supplies
on the island’s military airbase.
But getting it around the island will prove problematic as many roads are
under water and bridges have collapsed.
Zaira told me she is most worried about her two-year-old son Zahil.
She hopes he is being looked after by somebody and has managed to get to
higher ground - but she admits she is too upset to sleep.

Distress

We head off on her brother’s motorbike for the next stage of the search -
heading to the office co-ordinating the emergency operation here.
She joins others crowding around an updated list of survivors brought to
camps, hoping for good news. But the names of her children are nowhere to be
found.
So she heads back to the camps, questioning anyone who’s come from Car
Nicobar, an island where her children are just three among 10,000 people
thought to be missing.
That’s around half the island’s population.
Suddenly Zaira finds a neighbour from her village, another survivor from her
home.
She rushes towards her in vain hope.
Distressingly she is unable to shed any light on what has happened to Zaira’s
sons and daughter.
So Zaira’s search, like that of many from Car Nicobar, must go on.

Editor’s note:

We give special attention to the Andaman and Nicobar islands, as they are
among the weakest and feeblest in this drama.
Those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary.
. . And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it. 1 Cor
12.

Andaman and Nicobar tribes

Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the abode of probably the most primitive
tribes of the world. Out of the six aboriginal tribes inhabiting these
Islands five, namely, the Shompens, the Onges, the Great Andamanese, the
Sentinelese and the Jarawas are primitive tribes. The Shompens belong to the
Mongoloid stock and inhabit the Great Nicobar Island whereas the other four
primitive tribes belong to the Negrito stock inhabiting the Andaman Islands