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| Monday, 27 December 2004 |
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Bodies line south India beaches after killer tsunami MADRAS, India, Sunday (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 at least 1,000 people. Television footage showed bodies, including young girls, being tossed into lorries in Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu state. Vast swathes of land were submerged in one of India's worst natural disasters in living memory as heavy waves and winds slammed Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, leaving thousands homeless and hundreds of fishermen missing. "It was early in the morning and I was sorting my catch from the fishing net when I saw the waves climbing alarmingly," said Ravichandran, 32, a fisherman from Elliot's Beach in Madras. "I rushed back and pulled my wife and two children out of our home, Water had rushed into our hut by then." The tsunami that crashed into India and Sri Lanka and swamped tourist islands in Thailand and the Maldives was triggered by the world's fifth-largest quake in a century, measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale. Shanties on the coast of Madras, where 100 died, were submerged. Hundreds fled to higher ground with pots, pans and other meagre possessions as water flooded the huts. "I was taking a bath and before I realised what was happening, water 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. Hours after the tsunami hit, bodies ringed by wailing relatives lay on beaches surrounded by half-submerged cars and wrecked boats. People carried bodies in hessian sacks to nearby hospitals where dozens of dead already lined the corridors. "I felt like I was on a train. I turned around and I saw that a small glass table with a flower vase was shaking," said Madras resident Rajani Unni, who felt the tremors in her apartment about 100 metres (yards) from Elliot's Beach. "We saw people rushing away from fishermen's colonies lining the beach. Women were wailing and crying." In Andhra Pradesh, about 400 fishermen were feared missing and 200 Hindu devotees who had gone to the beach for a holy dip in the morning were feared dead. "Where are my mummy and daddy?" cried nine-year-old Bhuvaneswari, whose parents were swallowed by the sea at Manginapudi beach near Machilipatnam, about 350 km (200 miles) from the state capital, Hyderabad. The armed forces have been put on alert to help with rescue operations in both states. Police in Tamil Nadu said about 2,000 fishermen had been evacuated from Elliot's Beach. "Eight hundred people were killed in Tamil Nadu and 200 in Andhra Pradesh," Interior Minister Shivraj Patil told Aaj Tak television channel. Almost 500 tourists were stranded on a rock in the sea off the country's southernmost tip, Kanyakumari, witnesses said. Tourists generally take a ferry to the Vivekananda Rock memorial every morning to see the sun rise, but ferry services were halted soon after the tourists landed because of choppy seas, an official told Reuters. A police officer in Port Blair, capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands just north of the Indonesian province of Aceh, said at least 33 people had died there and ships and jetties had been damaged. A local police officer said jetties in Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands just north of the Indonesian province of Aceh, said that at least 33 people had died there and ships and jetties were damaged. Two oil refineries on the eastern coast were safe and operating normally, according to initial reports, a national government official said. Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd, a subsidiary of state-run Indian Oil Corp, operates a refinery in Madras, and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd has a refinery in the coastal town of Vishakapatnam. (Additional reporting by Surojit Gupta, Madhu Soman, N. Ananthanarayanan in New Delhi and Rina Chandran in Bombay) |
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