The Tsunami Disaster

I write this from the southernmost tip of India, a region that has always been known for its pristine beauty and tranquillity. No major wars have been fought on this soil, no disaster has struck, nothing untoward has happened on a massive scale, at least to my knowledge, in the past five decades.

All this peaceful record ended so abruptly on December 26, 2004 when a draconian tsunami lashed out and wrecked thousands of lives and families. The Kanyakumarians who have always looked up to the sea as a source of food and nurturance, spirituality and sacredness, entertainment and enjoyment, had a rude awakening on the black Sunday. With the beautiful frontyard to our peninsular home retreating several hundred feet for miles together, people were intrigued about this wonderful sight of hitherto unseen under-water territory. There were poor people who were eagerly collecting the stranded fish and crab for a free meal. There were Christmas holidayers, internal and international tourists, religious pilgrims taking the ceremonial dip in the sea with car festival in an ancient local temple, and innocent bystanders - all were taken aback when the cunningly crouched sea leaped forth like a ferocious predator. Whole fishing villages have disappeared; farmlands have been inundated by salt water; and people have lost family members, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. The loss seems universal; there is a debilitating sense of sadness and sorrow in everybody’s heart and soul. The whole dynamics of life stands altered.

The union government, state government, local government and all other government departments have let us down so callously. Although there was a golden gap of three hours between the underwater earthquake off of Sumatra and the tsunami attack on our coast, nobody gave an inkling of what was coming our way. Had there been at least a vague warning, it could have alerted and hence saved thousands of people.

Displaying utter ignorance, our Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, the chief functionary of the state government, went on repeating on TV on the day of the disaster that there was no further danger from tidal waves and even exhorted the affected people to stay put. It does make one wonder what the meterological department was doing during those hours of crisis and if there was any kind of coordination between the various departments and people in power.

It is also equally disturbing to see our national President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the notorious father of our nuclear bomb, calling for a tsunami warning system along the entire Indian coastline after the tragedy has swallowed up so many thousands of innocent lives. How would this high-tech hawkish guru who dreams of America-like militarily strong India explain why a highly- and densely-populated country with 7,000-km coastline never even bothered about joining the Pacific tsunami warning system?

The answer is obvious. The Indian elites have always shown interest in those development projects and defence deals where they could steal huge amounts of public money and have largely ignored the small steps that could make the life of ordinary citizens safe and secure. The Indian establishment and its head priests have been preoccupied with nuclear bombs, huge dams, ballistic missiles, mission to the Moon, and a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. A simple safety procedure such as joining the international tsunami warning system to save the ordinary Indians’ lives from an impending disaster is too small a thing for them to worry about.

This tsunami attack is yet another proof of our pathetic national record of emergency unpreparedness. Even after five days of the tsunami assault, there have been bloated human bodies and animal caracasses rotting on the open beaches and spreading diseases. Most victims who are languishing in the temporary shelters with intimate losses and incredible traumas have been complaining about the lackadaisical relief work of the government authorities. Politicians blame each other, ministers blame top bureaucrats, top bureaucrats blame the chotawallahs (lower officials); and all this betray our uncoordinated and utterly inefficient disaster management procedures. On the day of the disaster, this writer did not spot even one police officer or fire service personnel or a government official on the roads. It was the unequipped and empty-handed civilians who were helping each other.

The officials of the Kalpakkam nuclear power station (that is located near Chennai) claimed first that they had switched off their only functioning reactor the moment they had heard about the earthquake near Indonesia. When people started asking uncomfortable questions about their not intimating this information to other government agencies, the Kalpakkam authorities modified their story saying that the reactor shut down instantaneously after seawater entered the plant premises. Some 65 people including 10 nuclear plant scientists are reported dead in the tsunami tragedy. The foundations dug for the upcoming Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) plants are flooded and some construction workers killed.

If the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) officials are unable to protect their own men and machines from a natural disaster, how on the Earth are they going to protect us, evacuate us, rehabilitate us and safeguard our safety and security from possible attacks and accidents on a nuclear power plant? There have been persistent rumors about possible radiation leaks from the Kalpakkam plant, but the DAE and senior government officials give themselves "completely safe" certificate. If that is really so, why can’t we have any independent inspection and verification by a group of independent scientists and Indian citizens? These questions are very troubling.

The DAE and the Indian government are building another nuclear power plant at Koodankulam (near the southernmost tip of India) that also sits on the Bay of Bengal badly affected by the tsunami. Neighboring coastal villages such as Idinthakarai, Kooduthazhai, Koothankuzhi, Uvari, Koottapuli have all been damaged by the tidal waves. If the Koodankulam nuclear power project is this vulnerable, should we go ahead with the construction of this mega-nuclear site? Of course, answers the DAE. Like all the nuclear departments around the world would do, the Indian nukedom also claims that they can take care of all these eventualities.

The good news, however, is that the ordinary citizens of our area know for themselves now our establishment’s safety awareness and emergency preparedness. And they may be asking some serious questions about the "development" projects that the Indian elites are executing (no pun intended): Colachel commercial harbor (instead of the fishing harbor that our fishing community has been demanding); Koodankulam nuclear power plant built with Russian VVER technology at Koodankulam; Nuclear Fuel Complex at Palaya Kayal near the Thoothukudi port; Sethusamudram Canal Project (that would dig a short-cut sea route through the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka (and damage the ecological balance of the area and affect the livelihood of our fishing communities). All in the name of development! The development of our elites! Naturally, the wild cry of our "ordinary citizens" for appropriate technology and sustainable development would sound unpatriotic and even anti-national.