Eyewitness account of devastation following tsunami

Iqbal Hassen, a relief worker in Sri Lanka, offered the following eyewitness account to Manonita Ratwatte, faculty advisor to the Sri Lanka Student Association. Letters have been edited for content and length.

Wednesday, Dec. 29

Thank you for the condolences, concerns, responses and offers to help. May God reward you all for your intentions first.

I just returned from Hambantota and Kirinda, two badly effected towns. We took a lorryload and a jeep load of relief material to these areas. The scenes are beyond explanation. I am giving you a firsthand report of what I saw and experienced.

We went to Hambantota via Ratnapura and thru Tissamaharama as the coastal road was not yet cleared and we were taking relief goods by lorry. The first thing which struck us was the magnitude of the disaster and the fury and force with which it had hit. The first buildings we saw were completely destroyed. I am referring to concrete structures and cement buildings. Even concrete lamp posts, power pylons and huge trees in tsunami’s direct path have been uprooted. Strangely, there is total destruction for about 100 meters and then a row of houses untched, then destruction again. There were without exaggeration cars on trees, buses inside buildings, a boat on top of a roof, busses and lorries in the lake. Approximately 80% of Hambantota Town is destroyed, leveled to the ground. Kirinda town is 90% fishing and harbor is completely destroyed. This was the material damage. It is a total economic meltdown, about 70% of the wealthy in these towns have been reduced to “have-nots.”

Now the tragic part about human loss:

The stench emanating from certain parts of the town was unbearable. The officials and town fold told us 75% of the dead who had other family members surviving were buried with the help of the army. The other bodies which had no claimants were littered all over the place and rotting. The bodies of complete families, visitors and local tourists to the area, traders and others from different towns passing through. All these bodies which were not claimed and the bodies trapped under rubble were decomposing. The army and volunteers were collecting these bodies in tractors and piling them up for burial. We had to use backhoes to dig mass graves to bury the bodies. Proper instructions and norms could not be followed due to the bodies piling up, the stench and the problem of digging graves. God must forgive if there were shortcomings on the living who were trying to do their best. We thought a majority of the bodies were buried by about 1:30 in the afternoon. Suddenly we found further bodies decomposed in piles as the army and volunteers were finding more bodies as it was now past 48 hours and the bodies which were submerged in the lakes and water bodies were surfacing bloated up and decomposed.

It was heart-rending to see family members going through this piles of decomposing bodies looking for relatives and loved ones. I leave it to your imagination the grief and sorrow. Thank God by some foresight, my wife had packed 200 gloves and a case of dettol which we distributed to some of the army volunteers who were doing a yeoman service in recovering these bodies.

The silver lining to this dark cloud was the empathy shown by the people. The were coming in droves in cars, busses, lorries with food, clothing and water for the survivors. The humanity in the hearts of people were kindled and they responded. Unfortunately, this caused further problems like congestions in the already battered and littered streets. The crying need of the hour was for volunteers to organize things for the effected townsfolk as they were totally in shock and grief and could not believe that had happened to them. The stronger ones were having their own problems, as we did not find any family who had not lost someone or worse, members of their families were missing and hope of even finding their bodies for a proper burial were getting remote. Handling these people were very difficult as they would speak to you at a tangent as their minds were elsewhere. God must give them the strength to bear the loss.

In the evening, we got a group together and stood by the mass graves and performed prayer, fulfilling an obligation of the community, as I found out most had been buried without prayer.

Monday, Jan. 3:

Hi Everybody, I thought at this moment of gloom, let’s lighten up a few hearts and revive our faith in humanity.

While we were at the Mosque doing the relief work and getting them organized (as you all know, the Muslim villages are not the most organized lot) there was a constant stream of people arriving and giving their contributions in kind towards the welfare of the refugees. Though we were at a Mosque at the time, the majority of the people who came and gave were the poor Sinhalese village farmers. These village farmers in groups and sometimes with their village Buddhist monk, came in the hand tractors and trailers loaded with their produce: king coconuts, pumpkins, jack fruits, vegetables, corn, bananas, coconuts, rice, etc. They also bought water. They had taken the time to put water in plastic bags, tied them up and neatly packed them into boxes.

They must have come from far and near villages. They did not discriminate or see if it is a mosque or temple or church to which they gave. The equivalent would be, to you and me, donating our NEXT month’s salary as this produce would have sustained them for the coming month, as we all know they live by the day. Them giving this with humility and concern touched me to the extent of tears, as this is what I pray and hope to see in our Motherland one day. There were many Buddhist priests who were inside the mosque inquiring what they could do it was a beautiful sight of unity and harmony and giving without expecting anything in return.

Guys, hats off to our Sinhalese village brethren, hope the so-called educated townsfolk like us take a leaf from their book. One particular person, a Buddhist, Dr. Mrs. Jayatileke, an M.O. (medical officer) from the area was on her feet for 36 hours when we met her all by herself treating and looking into the thousand odd refugees at the Suriyawewa camp. She was virtually in tears when we met her and she almost broke down as she felt she could talk on the same plane as us, and was in tears when she told us that she had to send her breast-fed one month old baby with her husband to her hometown as she did not have time for the baby and was worried about diseases. She sacrificed and stayed with the refugees to do her duty as a doctor. She was dispensing and had finished all her private practice medical supplies issued free. Here is a doctor who stood by the oath she took. These are the true heroes of this disaster.