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| Thursday, 30 December 2004 |
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by P. Krishnaswamy and Vavuniya Spl Corr. About 25 coastal villages in Mullaitivu district have been completely wiped out by the killer waves that struck the nation last Sunday, GA for the District Mary Imelda Sugumar said last Tuesday at the Vavuniya District Secretariat. Death toll in the villages would exceed three thousand.More than one thousand bodies have so far been recovered while two thousand people are reported missing and they also have to be presumed as dead, she said. Rescue operations are being carried out under very difficult conditions, she said. Many government officials and their families are also among the missing. Twenty-two thousand displaced people are now housed in 16 welfare centres and relief measures are being extended with the Treasury allocation of Rs.10 million for emergency relief measures. A home for destitute children has been washed away by the waves destroying lives of about 80 of its inmates, the GA said. All buildings in Mullaitivu town including the newly constructed government buildings have been reduced to rubble. Human corpses and carcasses of cattle are foating in the remaining patches of sea water with a bad stench emanating aside from the rapidly deteriorating hygienic conditions and the threat of epidemics breaking out, she said. There is an acute shortage of drinking water, clothes for the displaced people and milk food for infants, she said. Mullaitivu looks a haunted city with strewn bodies and carcasses, damaged and overturned vehicles and sea water in large patches in several areas, the GA said. |
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