The Hindu : International : Survivors' words say it all

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 30, 2004

International

International

Survivors' words say it all

LONDON, DEC. 29. "People are looting, but not because they are evil, but they are hungry," said a Red Cross official Irman Rachmat in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

"There was a three-hour gap between the tremors and the wave. People want to know why there was no alert," asked Meena Raman in Malaysia.

"It was like someone had pulled the plug on the world. We were trying to spur each other on but we were all crying for our lives," said Lisa Morgan (30) legal secretary from Chatham, staying in the Maldives.

"The water went back, back, back and everyone wondered what it was. Then we saw the wave come, and we ran," said Katri Seppanen, on Phuket with her family.

"We must have dug seven or eight pits and buried 25, 30, 35 bodies in each of them. I've never buried so many in a single day in my life," said a gravedigger in India.

"Why did you do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you? This is worse than death," said a woman in a devastated fishing village in Tamil Nadu.

"This was the worst day in our history. I wish I had died. There is no point in living any more," said a Sri Lankan dive shop owner YP Wickramsinghe.

"I cannot ask a man who has lost his family and home to boil his water before drinking," said a Medical officer at the government hospital in Nagappattinam.

"Our nation is in peril here. Life as we know it in this country is in some parts gone," said Ahmed Shaheed, chief government spokesman, the Maldives.

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