High Water and Heartache

AFTER A 36 HOUR journey from London I arrived in Kilinochchi, the capital of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. The tsunami wave had not reached the town, but the schools and hospitals were overflowing with refugees from the coastal areas that had been devastated by the wave. I visited one of the refugee centres in a school next to a hospital. The shock and suffering were clearly visible on the faces of the survivors.

Heartrending tales

I asked an elderly lady from the coastal town of Mullaitivu, which had been flattened by the wave, how she managed to survive. Looking in the distance she replied with a sad smile, I have lost my sons and daughters, grandchildren and friends, the only family I have left is a granddaughter and her father who is in the hospital. My house and community disappeared in the wave. I don't know what will become of us.' Mary Romina, her surviving eleven-year-old granddaughter sat silently beside her. They were able to save themselves by hanging onto a palm tree, and were later rescued by passersby.
The following day we travelled to Mullaitivu. From the distance trees and palm fronds covered the roads, evidence of the destruction and tragedy of a community once full of life; three thousand people died out of a community of five thousand. As we approached, we could only see the ruins of churches, the concrete foundations of what were once homes, pieces of boats, discarded fishing nets, mattresses hanging from trees, and dead animals. The smell of death was all around us.
In one of the streets, once paved but now reduced to sand, hanging on a tilting pole was the wooden sign of the orphanage, Senthalir Illam, which means Tender Shoots. One hundred and seventy five children between the ages of one and fourteen lived together as one big family until the tsunami struck. They had already suffered a great tragedy in their lives; they had lost their parents in the war.

So many children

That fateful day, the children were just finishing breakfast, and some of them had already walked down to the beach to play in the sea. One hundred and twenty three died when the sea flattened four of the buildings crushing the children trapped inside who were unable to escape in time. A few children survived by climbing on top of the highest shelves in the only building still standing. I walked through what was left of the reception room and saw photo albums, unsharpened pencils, new books for the new school year, and chess boards scattered around the floor. Colour photographs of western and Sri Lankan children were still stuck on the walls. Outside, metallic bed frames had landed haphazardly on top of each other.
St. Mary's Convent, the school next door which the children attended, was also completely destroyed. Desks and chairs were scattered in the debris. Miraculously a grotto with a statue of Our Lady survived unscathed. The people of northern and eastern Sri Lanka are predominantly Roman Catholic, and I found constant reminders of this in the flattened landscape: statues of Our Lady and of saints, a priest's stole and Mass Books in the sand, a statue of St. Philip Neri waist deep in the ruins of a building.
Just a few metres from the sea were the remains of the altar and arches of the Catholic Church of Our Lady Carrying the Ship. The statue of Our Lady with a ship on one arm and baby Jesus on the other had once been brought ashore by the sea, but this time it was swept away in the wave. They told me how the statue had been travelling in a ship that stopped in Mullaitivu for longer than planned. The people sailing on the ship believed that the statue was preventing them from continuing their journey so they threw it overboard. It floated ashore and the church was dedicated to Our Lady.

Miraculous premonition

As we continue walking along the coast we reach St. Peter's Catholic Church. Statues of saints had been dragged hundreds of metres by the waves, and little remained of the church building. Miraculously, nobody had died in the church itself due to an extraordinary premonition that the parish priest, Fr. James Patinala, had on the previous day. Sr. Harun, a nun of the Holy Family from Jaffna, was in Mullaitivu to help the survivors. She told me what happened, During Christmas Mass Fr. James announced that the 8 o'clock Mass on the following day would be an open air Mass about three kilometres inland. Only 50 families attended, as many had been celebrating the previous evening until late. Just as he was giving the final blessing at the end of the Mass people came running up to us, shouting, 'Flood is coming, flood is coming!' Some of those at the Mass instinctively ran towards their village to try to rescue their relatives and belongings, and were caught up in the wave. Most of those who stayed at home disappeared in the wave.
Fr. Da Lima from the Mannar Diocese, which was not affected by the tsunami, had also come to give pastoral support to the people, many of whom were fishermen's families living on the coasts for generations. Our work is to console the people because they are in trauma. We have teams of priests working full time and other priests supporting the teams. This is a disaster for the communities as they have not only lost their families, but also their boats, their only means of livelihood.
Later that day I met Fr. Percy, parish priest of Our Lady's Catholic Church, who was just ending Sunday Mass when the tsunami struck. On the morning of the 26th I said 6 am Mass at Our Lady's, which was attended by about 60 families. Then I went to say the 7.30 am Mass at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Catecali, a village nearby. About 45 families attended, and after Mass, when everyone was in a happy mood, we heard a big blast, and then two further blasts, and we thought that it was shelling from a naval ship. Then someone shouted that the sea was coming, and two or three seconds later an 8 metre wall of sea came towards us. Some managed to reach higher land, some of us climbed a building, and the water level kept rising almost to the top of the building. I saw a little girl caught in the water, but she kept swimming and was saved. Two or three minutes later the water suddenly receded and I could hear voices crying. Thirty-eight people, mainly those trapped inside their houses, died in Catecali, and many more were injured.

Why?

Fr. Percy thinks it will take a long time for people to rebuild their faith: People doubt the existence of God. They keep asking me, 'Why does He punish us like this and take away our little children?' I cannot give them a reason, and I listen to them. I believe God is trying to tell us something with this incident, God is here. Normally they are very Church oriented people, and they attend Mass every Sunday. They have lost everything including their boats, and they are thinking about their future and how to build their lives again. Most people want to return to their own places.
Some were already returning to their villages. I met families from the villages of Ongin and Kattailailu, who had been staying in temporary accommodation in Mullaitivu, travelling on tractors back to their home. They were smiling, eager to return to their villages and to start rebuilding their lives. Among them was Mary Rosa Jesudas, 14, and Colin Jude, 17, who was holding a 9 month-old baby Eajujin.
At a refugee centre in a school in the village of Chempianpattu I heard more heartbreaking stories of people losing nearly every family member. Thilagarni, 30, lost four of her five children aged 4 to 14, her husband also survived. Patricia, 28, lost her daughter, mother, aunts and grandmothers. But there were also miraculous stories of whole families surviving as in the case of Sivaneswaran, 36, and his wife and four children, who ran in different directions and clung onto palm trees until they were rescued when the water receded.
The last church I visited at the other end of Mullaitivu was St. Anthony's Catholic Church which was completely submerged in water. A broken statue of Saint Anthony was found by the parish priest, Fr. Francis, hundreds of metres away from the church. Fr. Francis was very upset by the loss of 25 children from his parish. His assistant priest, Fr. Hapspur, had been rehearsing hymns with the children before Sunday Mass in the building next to the church. The sea came so suddenly that the building collapsed, and Fr. Hapspur was unable to protect the children trapped inside the building. He tried to save them, but was prevented by the speed and brutality of the catastrophe.
In the midst of so much devastation and pain, the collective solidarity of people throughout the world is giving the survivors of the tsunami the strength to rebuild their communities. It will take a long time for peace to return to the hearts of the families affected by this tragedy.