It was the Sunday after Christmas, December 26. The Holy Mass was at 6:15 a.m. By 8:00 a.m. Mass was over. People had gone home. At 9:00 a.m. I sat to have my breakfast. I had hardly taken the first bite when I heard Suresh, the boy with me, yelling and screaming, "Water, water, water is coming!" I ran out of the refectory, looked out, and lo and behold, the sea spread out its fangs and was rushing to devour us -- frightening indeed! That was my feeling as I saw the sight. I yelled out, "Run into the church! Everyone run!" I had around six children and two ladies staying with me.
Precious lives of babies, children, youth, mothers, fathers, and elders! Around 2,000 homes were razed to the ground, the villages devastated beyond recognition! All gone with the waters! It was a harrowing and nightmarish experience in broad daylight. Two weeks after the experience, people have not got over the trauma. It is still haunting them. They don't want to go back to Dutch Bar anymore.
On December 26 the evacuation of the dead began. The mortuary in the hospital was full. The bodies were laid out on the verandas and on the floor of the wards. On identification, the kith and kin took away the bodies for burial. Unidentified bodies were buried together - 6, 8, or 10 in a grave. The evacuation continued for 3 to 4 days. Daily for 3 days the bodies were burned then and there, as they were discovered. On the 12th and 13th day after the disaster, bodies still washed up by the lagoon shore or were found under the debris.
People are not at all out of the trauma yet. It is going to take them a long while before they come out of it, especially the Dutch Bar Burgher community, which counts about 130 of its dear ones dead and whose houses are all simply no more. They swear they won't return. The sound of water and even vehicles haunts them -- grownups, sturdy, strong Burgher men and women. It is much more so with the youth and young ones. Relocating them to their former place has been totally rejected by them, despite personal appeals.
I pray God to heal their wounds, remove the fear, and help them relocate as one community. This holds for Tamils, too, both Christians and Hindus.
