Report on the Tsunami: Kanchipuram District

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Title: Egyptian paper: Israel-India nuke test caused tsunami
Source: Jerusalem Post
URL Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1104981578311
Published: Jan 7, 2005
Author: JOSEPH NASR
Post Date: 2005-01-07 06:29:14 by r-u-n-n o-f-t
2 Comments


The earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, triggering a series of huge waves called tsunami, ``was possibly`` caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which ``Israeli and American nuclear experts participated,`` an Egyptian weekly magazine reported Thursday.

According to Al-Osboa`, India, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has lately received sophisticated nuclear know-how from the United States and Israel, both of which ``showed readiness to cooperate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind.``

Since 1992, the magazine argued, leading geological centers in Britain, Turkey and other countries, warned of the need ``not to hold nuclear experiments in the region of the Indian Ocean known as `the Fire Belt,` in which the epicenter of the earthquake lies.

Geologists labeled that region `The Fire Belt` for being ``a dangerous terrain that can move at anytime, without human intervention,`` Al-Osboa` wrote.

Despite warnings not to carry out nuclear experiments in and around the `Fire Belt`, ``Israel and India continue to conduct nuclear tests in the Indian Ocean, and the United States has recently decided to carry out similar tests in the Australian deserts, which is included in the `Fire Belt`, the Egyptian weekly magazine wrote.

``Last year only, Arab and Islamic states have asked the United States to stop its nuclear activities in that region, and to urge Israel and India to follow suite,`` Al-Osboa` reported.

Although Al-Osboa` does not rule out the possibility that the tsunami could have been caused by a natural earthquake it speculates however that, ``while it has not been proved yet, there has been a joint Israeli-Indian secret nuclear experiment [conducted on December 26] that caused the earthquake.``

The Egyptian weekly magazine concludes in its report that ``the exchange of nuclear experts between Israel and India, and US pressure on Pakistan which is exerted by supplying India with state-of-the-art nuclear technology and preventing Islamabad from cooperating with Asian and Islamic states in the nuclear field, pose a big question mark on the causes behind the violent Asian earthquake.``

Incitement against Israel and Jews in Egyptian media is usually limited to the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict yet exceptions are known to occur.

In August 2002, the Paris Supreme Court summoned Ibrahim Naafi`, editor of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, for having authorized the publication of a controversial article entitled `Jewish matza is made from Arab blood` in the October 28, 2000 edition of the paper.

Naafi` was charged with incitement to anti-Semitism and racist violence.

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re: more on the intellectual bankrupcy of the Saudis
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/
Khalid Hassan`s article in TFT further points to the intellectual bankrupcy that has set in Saudi Arabia and many other Middle Eastern Countries. The cartoon in that article shows a Tsunami victim crying out for help while drowning while an Arab at the shore says ``Yor are being punished for nudity, prostitution and immorality``!
Here are the relevant paras from Khalid Hassan`s article titled ``The wrath of God``:

1. (The great Asian tsunami catastrophe has been played in the world of Islam as punishment for the misdeeds and sins of the Muslims who are said to have strayed from the path of God, who has taught them a lesson they will not forget for a long time. Accordingly, they should repent and beg forgiveness for having abandoned the path of virtue and rightful conduct.)

2. (The view that wanton behavior provoked the quake was the subject of Friday sermons in Saudi Arabia and of other religious commentaries in the Kingdom. “Asia’s earthquake, which hit the beaches of prostitution, tourism, immorality and nudity,” one commentator said on an Islamist website, “is a sign that God is warning mankind from persisting in injustice and immorality before he destroys the ground beneath them.”)

3. ``Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajiid explained that God’s tsunami punishment of Christians stemmed from “the Christian holidays (that) are accompanied by forbidden things, by immorality, abomination, adultery, alcohol, drunken dancing ....``

One would like to ask this counterquestion to Saudis: how come they fritted away a unique opportunity to do some good to the muslims of Indonesia during this tragedy? How come much of muslim world does not have any resources or technology that even India has? How come a poor India managed to help a predominantly muslim Indonesia and predominantly buddhist Srilanka and Thailand while Saudis were busy lecturing the world about morality?
Fifty years from now, new players will be calling the shot. Saudis may be sure that India will be one such player. Nothing is forgotten or forgiven. The atrocities perpetrated on the ``dark skinned`` indian maids, workers in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries has penetrated the Indian psyche. When India can take on these barbarians, it will be time to put oil (or whatever remains of it) down the collective Arabian rectum and bang it in with huge Indian phallus. I hope to be alive to see that day.
sridhar

sadna # 23

fishermen make decent money in tamilnadu
i doubt people will get over the trauma of tsunami anytime soon.

http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=412774
(Toronto Daily Star)

India`s raging internal storm
Martin Regg Cohn finds the fishing villages of Tamil Nadu wracked by waves of guilt and despair

MARTIN REGG COHN
ASIA BUREAU

DEVANAMPATTINAM, India-After the tsunami comes the storm — a welling up of emotions and grief that devastates the psyche.

The physical scars etched into India`s southeastern shoreline — the razed houses and ravaged boats — are healing slowly.

But the mental scars run deeper, destined to endure long after the rebuilding is done and the fishing resumes.

For villagers in the east coast state of Tamil Nadu, which bore the brunt of the devastation on India`s mainland, the grief isn`t going away.

Three weeks after tidal waves drowned her two children, Kalayvani Nagaraj still can`t fathom how to cope with the loss.

She huddles within the plastered walls of her sister`s home, crying incessantly, shunning daylight, declining food, unable to sleep.

It`s not just the tsunami that torments her, nor the guilt she feels for surviving.

Nagaraj bears the crushing burden of having heeded the best advice of health care workers after the birth of her second child in 2002: She had her tubes tied.

``As soon as my boy was born, I did it,`` she says softly.

Today, wondering whether the operation can be reversed, the petite 24-year-old is despondent, blaming herself for being unable to bear any more babies to replace her lost progeny.

``I am unable to recover,`` she whispers in the shadows of her sister`s home, covering her mouth with the folds of her rust-coloured sari.

``I wonder why I should live. Even now, I wish that I could have died and my children survived,`` she laments, large eyes downcast, now biting her nails.

``Even if I try to eat, the food gets stuck in my throat.``

Her husband, Prabhu, a brawny 28-year-old fisherman, bundled the whole family into his boat when he saw the giant waves approaching their beachfront home. But the boat capsized in the chaos and the children couldn`t swim.

Now, the parents spend their days bemoaning their fate.

Heartsick.

Their girl, Roshini, was 3 1/2. Their boy, Danesh, was 2.

``Whatever we did, our children were always with us — they were our support,`` Nagaraj continues.

``My children were my life, and now both of them are gone.``

More than 10,000 people died and 5,000 are still missing across India, with an estimated 2.7 million Indians affected directly. But statistics don`t tell the story.

It`s not just the loss of life and livelihood, but losing the will to live, that afflicts this state.

Many survivors are simply at a loss about how to get on with their lives.

Newly orphaned children are in shock over losing their parents. Parents are still lamenting the loss of their children.

Mental health workers say that women and children are the most severely affected.

It`s easier for men to immerse themselves in reconstruction, while women often remain behind in their villages, surrounded by reminders of what they once had.

``We fear that if this continues, they will have severe mental depression,`` warns Karoline Davis, who specializes in gender and development issues for the World Vision aid organization.

``Men can distract themselves with work and fun, with friends and drinking,`` she says after visiting survivors across Tamil Nadu last week. ``They get rid of their feelings that way.``

Women are often weighed down by ``shame and guilt,`` especially those who couldn`t find their children after being engulfed by the waves.

`Children and women are the target, because men are not open to it. They don`t grieve openly, it`s difficult to get through to them`

Deepali Kapoor, psychologist

``They sit with vacant expressions,`` says Davis. ``They can`t work out and express their grief.``

Orphaned siblings are overwhelmed by their new circumstances, with the eldest ``holding the young ones tightly so that no one would take them away from them.``

Aid workers have tried to encourage a catharsis by invoking traditional Hindu rituals on the seashore, hoping that survivors might ventilate their pent-up grief. But the early results are not encouraging.

Many survivors remain suicidal. Widows who must become breadwinners to support their children are simply giving up.

Relief officials from the government and international aid groups are responding to the crisis with an unprecedented wave of counselling and support services.

In a local culture where people are used to doing things rather than talking about things, this represents a special challenge.

But even the villagers realize they need help to overcome psychological paralysis.

``They are open to it, because they`re now in a state of shock, they`re numb,`` says psychologist Deepali Kapoor.

``Children and women are the target, because men are not open to it — they don`t grieve openly, it`s difficult to get through to them.

``Children don`t have the coping strategies, but men can go back to work.``

Outsiders like Kapoor, who is based in New Delhi, plan to train local Tamil-speaking counsellors in the art of listening — allowing survivors to articulate their feelings and come to terms with their grief.

Child-protection committees and self-help groups are springing up to try to provide continuing support.

In the surrounding district of Cuddalore, just south of the old French colonial outpost of Pondicherry, the rebuilding is moving at a breakneck pace.

Backhoes are clearing the rubble and heavy cranes are hoisting upturned fishing boats back into the water in this once-prosperous village. Across the state, 50,000 thatched-roof huts are being built for refugees. Compensation has already been paid out.

Yet for all of India`s experience in dealing with natural disasters — earthquakes, cyclones, droughts — this one is different. The tsunami has terrified people like nothing else ever has.

``As soon as the tsunami came, we asked for these persons (counsellors) to come, after seeing the enormity of the problem,`` says D. Jaganathan, local project officer for the government`s Rural Development Agency.

``Normally in our society, women and adolescent girls are very tender-hearted, their feelings are very high, so counsellors will first attend to the women who lost family members.``

Still, Jaganathan`s task is not just to calm troubled waters but also to get fishing boats back into the sea to revive the local economy.

In his district alone, 7,000 boats were destroyed — grounding countless fishermen.

People are being reimbursed for property damage and compensated for the loss of family members.

But charity is no easy thing in the coastal villages of Tamil Nadu, where the fishermen are proud of their success at sea. A typical boat could generate hundreds of dollars in cash flow daily for its crew.

Accustomed to fending for themselves, the fishermen felt humiliated by offers of second-hand clothing.

``Fisher folk were doing well in their business, so when the clothing was distributed they said, `We don`t want your cast-offs,``` recalls Edwin Pankiraj, a financial officer for World Vision.

``At first, they just wanted their boats back. They had become paupers, but they just couldn`t accept it — they had a mental block,`` he explains. ``Now, they`re accepting reality.``

A World Vision truck has pulled up at the beach to distribute dry rations — oil, rice, lentils, toothpaste, clothing and blankets — among local fishermen and their families.

But the NGO is covering all its bases, supplementing the relief work with longer-term recovery plans to supply replacement boats at no cost to the fishing fleet.

Survival is what motivates Prabhu Nagaraj, the fisherman who lost his two young children.

He spends his days mending nets and repairing battered boats in the village.

The government has awarded 200,000 rupees ($5,500) as compensation for the deaths, but it will never make up for the loss.

``Above all, I have lost my precious children, so whatever the government gives me won`t be compensation,`` he says, eyes watering. ``Even if I lose my life in the sea, I will surely go back to fishing, because that`s the only thing I know.``

Fishing, and being a father.

Harimau,

This was really neat and a very good read.

re: Bankrupcy of the Saudis

http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=412668
Go to the above Url to find out how much the Saudis have given for Tsunami relief. Pittance. This brings to the fore an important question: should muslims continue to regard Saudi Arabia as its spiritual mentor when that country has not done anything to help the muslims in need during this tragedy? It is time to question the overriding role played by Saudi Arabia in preaching the extreme version of Islam. What is more important? Mere words or deeds?
Sridhar

For those who wanted to know what else is going on as aid efforts hit their stride:

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050124&fname=CTsunami&sid=1

Looking forward to part 2, Harimau.

i like this article..street level reportage (biases and all) major contrast than a ferzana-type article written by reading other articles. on mamalipuram rd, there was an awful place called the Golden Beach. this place had some larger than life plaster-of-paris statues of scary things..(like a 25 ft woman playing a 40 ft veena). i hope this abomonation got washed off in the tsunami.

one legend on mahabalipuram temple.. it is supposed to have been built as a show-off to ward off sea-faring adventurers (and religion spreaders).

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hp #14
Kolachal is very far away from chennai and is in the west coast and not in the east coast. It is very close to Trivandrum, the capital of kerala.
kolachal and nearby affected places including kaidapattinam, melmanakkudi, , rajackamangalm, muttathura all received voluminous support first and foremost from their immediate neighbors including nagercoil, thengaipattinam, thothoor,eraniel etc. Kolachal people initially staged varous tharnas and will not let any VIP inside (Time of India called them ``Very Insensitive Person``) because they felt that the district collector was more focused on taking care of a visiting supreme court judge immediately after the tsunami.

The only VIP who came to koalachal and apparently assuaged them was PM Manmohan Sing himself.

The relief efforst are already in full swing and in the second stage i.e. building/repairing schools/houses and boats and most importantly getting the fisherman back onto their jobs.

I may have had a couple of shots this Saturday evening, but Harimau there are couple of things that really bug me about this article.

1. You live in Chennai, have followed the tsunami disaster and most likely are involved with the relief effort yet you didn’t know where the real impact was? Granted, most impacted towns were anywhere from 70 to 200 miles or KM from Chennai, Still, those names are so much in the news that you ought to have known worst affected areas before you set out to find out for yourself. Are you sure you drove out not knowing where the waves struck the most? What were you thinking when you “decided to investigate the tsunami on our own.”

Do Nagappattinam, Tarangambad, Karaika, Kolachal and Kalpakkam ring a bell for you?

2. It sounds like you are trying to put down poor folks, who were probably trying to scam some apparently naïve people who did not even know where the tsunami disaster was. I agree that their attempts were pathetic as you and your driver caught on to them fairly quickly.

“I told my brother to hightail it out of the place fast as we were being taken for a ride.”

I don’t know I may be too naive here but what would have been a polite thing to do?

A) Ensure that every body who reads the article knows that poor villagers were scam artists and tsunami hadn’t hurt them at all or
B) Just leave it at that as you still had TV stations, Newspapers, state government and the central government to pick on.

Sorry, if you find me too blunt!

http://www.newindpress.com

Farewell to fear: Ministers take to sea with fishermen
Sunday January 16 2005 00:00 IST

KANCHEEPURAM: In an effort to ward off the fear of the sea among the fishermen following the December 26 tsunami, ministers along with senior officials from the Kancheepuram district administration travelled with the fishermen off the Mahabalipuram coast on Saturday.

Finance Minister C Ponnaiyan and Textile and Handlooms Minister V Somasundaram along with Collector R Venkatesan and a host of other officials travelled in two boats for about an hour to help the fishermen. There, the fishermen told minister Somasundaram that the terrain had changed following the tsunami and that quality edible fish were not available.

The fishermen added that fish were usually found along shallow places where the ground was damp. But with the change, edible fish had gone away, they lamented. Fisherman also said that if they had to go to fishing, it would only be a futile exercise as it would take many months for the fish to return.

The ministers also distributed cheques for Rs 1,000 each to about 25 fishermen whose nets were damaged in the tsunami. And, in Nemilikuppam area, relief materials worth Rs 8,000 were given to about 45 fishermen families.

Actions speak louder than words. Your efforts in being an active participant in the relief effort show that you not only talk the talk but also walk the walk.

Good reporting, harimou!

Hope you will report from further south where the damage is supposed to be more severe.