Sri Lanka's coasts seem almost dead, more ghostly than ever

Nadeera Seneviratne, The Island, Asia News Network, Colombo

Along the coastal road in Sri Lanka's west, there was, before the tsunami, a row of houses, commercial and administrative buildings, and luxury hotels promising sun and surf. On the eastern belt, there's little property to be ravaged.

This is more so in LTTE-held areas, where the little destroyed is all the more important for the civilians. Approaching from the north, the alpha 15 Trincomalee-Batticaloa road below Eachilampattu, before which there are two Sri Lankan Home Guard and Army checkpoints followed by an LTTE checkpoint, is deserted. There's no transport, no telephone facilities, and no electricity (as usual). And nobody on the road, except for UN and Red Cross jeeps and tractors.

The people are in camps for the displaced. The tsunami had not hit Verugal Aru where the ferry transported people and vehicles across the river. An LTTE member there said the tsunami damage was at Kathiraveli, although there were women and children at the Verugal kovil by the river. These people, we were told, were the families of LTTE members, and were not displaced people.

Across the river at Kandalady, Vakarai, at a camp managed by a 12 member committee comprising NGOs and government officials, 51 people had died. Thirty two of them were female, and nineteen male. They did not have a figure for the number of children dead. Around 690 people were living in the camp set up there. At Kathiraveli, there had been 57 deaths reported and around 1840 people displaced. One child had been orphaned there according to reports. At Bammivattaram, 54 persons had died, with around 900 displaced.

There are many more dead, and many more camps. In the seven camps managed jointly by the Koralai Pattu North Development Union (KPNDU), more than 150 deaths had been recorded and nearly 3300 displaced families were being looked after. Nadarajah, who works for the KPNDU, said the 12 member committee that managed the camps comprised the grama sevaka, a Rural Development Society representative, Samurdhi official and KPNDU officers. He said there were no LTTE members in the committee, but one or two could be seen in the camps.

The Red Cross and other UN members were also not represented on this committee, but visited the camps to provide relief services. At Kandalady, the Red Cross was distributing coupons for relief items among families in the camp. UNHCR tents were a common sight in the camps, and water tanks donated by Oxfam and the Department of Social Services and water in polythene packets provided adequate water for most of the camps. On almost all other items they faced a shortage at Kandalady, Nadarajah, who is from Kathiraveli, said.

Help is at hand. The UN is present, and Nadarajah said a mudalali from Anuradhapura had come with water purification tablets. A pastor had reportedly been working in the area since Dec. 26, the day the tsunami struck. Asked whether the LTTE had intervened in any way, Nadarajah said they hadn't.

He added that the Sri Lanka Army had taken over an IDP camp in Kadju Watta (in the Mankerni area and beyond Vakarai from the north), but that it would be handed over to the KPNDU team soon. He implied that army control would be problematic. KPNDU has been present in the area for some years now, and receives funds from Australia, Nadarajah said. Their head office is in Colpetty.

Nagarajah, a resident of Vakarai had been born in Polonnaruwa. He had lived in the east coast for thirty five years after marriage. He seemed happy to communicate in Sinhala. He said he had lost his fishing boat and all that went with it. On being told he would be given a new boat and fishing gear, he said nothing, but looked cautiously hopeful.

Kohomba trees in Vakarai were yellow and clumps of unidentifiable brown skeletons of smaller trees marked the landscape. Along the road, building after building had been razed to the ground.

These were small constructions, and the even smaller and less solid coconut thatched houses had been swept away leaving little trace. The Kandalady Vaharai LTTE cemetery, and a kovil had been badly damaged by the tsunami, and through the gaping windows and doors of a church the sea was visible, its back wall having totally disappeared.

A post office had been razed as well, but somebody seems to have propped up the name board saying Post Office, Vakarai. A hospital newly built and yet to be occupied had suffered much damage. Unlike in the western and southern coasts of Sri Lanka, there were no signs of people returning to their homes.

The Vakarai bridge on the Uppar lagoon was being renovated, but at slow pace. Work on the wide gaps had not begun, and workers were filling the holes in the bridge with brick from the tsunami damaged buildings. The brick was being placed over rock stones that had been newly placed.

Supervisor Anton Selvarajah, of the Road Maintenance Company (RMC) which he said had been contracted by the Valachchennai RDA office to renovate the bridge, said the supply of rock stones on the LTTE side of the bridge was low because of a short supply of dynamite there.

He said that at the other end, they would be able to complete the renovation with rock stones alone. Selvarajah said the brick would not be a problem. As the bridge was impassable, about four boats served to carry passengers across the lagoon, and one of them had a TRO flag and another a KPNDU flag. Those two, Selvarajah said, did not charge for their service, but the other two did.

The coast here seems almost dead. More ghostly than ever, Vakarai, where the people's main livelihood was fishing and agriculture and where development has been hampered by Sri Lanka Army-LTTE battles and LTTE-Karuna battles, would take longer than other tsunami affected areas to recover.