Tsunami Remembered

It is now almost a year since the massive tsunami wreaked havoc in Sri Lanka, Aceh, North West coast of Malaysia and Southern Thailand. Sunday December 26th. 2004 and the following days, weeks and months, will be a period remembered by people in these areas for yet a long time to come. The pain, sadness, trauma and loss felt cannot be described in mere words. There is nothing in the vocabulary to describe the phenomenon. Even the word tsunami then draws blank bewilderment amongst people. They understand earthquakes but they do not understand tsunami. The days following December 26th. 2004 left many of us confused and bewildered. The magnitude of the catastrophe just could not ‘sink in’ in our minds. It was unbelievable.
Ram and I were in the Tun Hussein Onn Hospital when the tsunami happened. She was admitted on Friday 24th after having a bad infection of her newly grafted right cornea. She had to be given intensive and intrusive care with three different types of eyedrops to the eye every 15 minutes on Friday and Saturday. The frequency was reduced to hourly on Sunday and two hourly on Monday. So we were in hospital when the tsunami happened. We watched it all on TV.

It is now almost a year, two more days to the day. A few days ago Tessa brought home a book titled “A Time To Heal” a reflection of Mercy Malaysia’s response to the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. It was recently launched by Mercy Malaysia. Vivid accounts of what happened, what the volunteers experienced, and page after page of pictures of the devastations brought back memories of what we repeatedly saw on tv during the 2004 year end week. Reading through the articles, interviews and records given in the book brought endless lumps in my throat. The volunteers do not have enough medical supplies to help the victims. There were just too many of them and there were just too few supplies available. One oxygen tank and one face mask had to be shared between a number of patients. “I did not try to remember their names. Perhaps it was my defence mechanism so that they did not become people I would remember forever”, said Dr Jelillah, President of Mercy Malaysia, who was in the thick of things, providing help and assistance to the victims in Aceh. “But it was difficult”, she continued. “How can I not remember Fitra Munandar, the plump 11 year old who was found after being buried in water and mud for four days.” “I watched him dying that night, his lungs filled with mud, all the time crying out for his mother and none of us could tell him that she had died before him, like the rest of the family except for an elder sister sobbing quietly by his side. His body burned with fever and there was nothing any of us could do. I was helpless and felt hopeless.” The same sentiments we echoed by others in the book and I remember reading similar helpless and hopelessness in the papers and articles written soon after the incident in other places like Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Many NGOs and voluntary organization, including the press organized collection of donations and aid poured in from all corners of the world. Various funds were set up to help the victims. Governments, voluntary organizations, the United Nations, and many others took the lead to campaign and call for assistance. The general public the world over responded instantaneously. Millions upon millions were collected. I would have thought that the funds collected would really help the victims to pick up the pieces and begin a new life with some ease. But it was not to be so. There is wonder in the minds of people in the streets of what happened to their donations, their contributions to the fund. There was no owning up to what had been done to the funds. There was no audit. I hear first accounts of people who have visited the devastated areas saying that nothing much had been done to help rebuild given the magnitude of funds and aids pouring in during the collection period. What they see does not add up to what was collected. My thoughts brought back memories of how funds were collected for victims, prepared for distribution by one private organization, only to be thwarted by bureaucracy, by demands of certain powers that be that aid must go through the proper authorities. In the end the victims continue to suffer, living in makeshift centers with the less than minimal facilities, denied of the aids due to them. Its humiliating and degrading to see them in that condition whiles those power that be continue in their luxuries. What gives them the authority to decide when and where to give aid, aid of which in fact were not from them but provided for by others and the general public?

I agree that there were humanitarian aids provided for the victims. There were various teams, like Mercy Malaysia, the Red Cross, aid organization of various individual countries of the North, West, South and East, all there complementing each other at the scene of the devastations, working and helping to provide some relieve to the victims, morally and physically. But what happened to all the money collected? It is a question many are asking but are also wondering whether there will be any answers. I wonder and I continue to ponder…….

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya