I spent last Saturday in Nagapatinam with a NGO Group called kaviri.
Kaviri is network of NGO activities in thanjavur district mainly concentrating on the women welfare , education ( running couple of schools ) & in the promoting eco friendly cultivation. Since I was in my native place ( Kumbakonam ) @ that time. It was very useful to find a group like kaviri & joined them in relief works.
The role of Kaviri in Nagapatinam is to remove the dead bodies and concentrate on the relief & rehabilitation works. They are doing it using 50 volunteers working in teams.
I was provided with the gloves for hands and the mask for the face and we all set to go to AKKARA PETTAI – one of the worst affected parts in Nagapatinam
On reaching there we were formed as 3 teams and allotted areas to search for dead bodies and burn them
sense the smell of dead bodies in deep batches & broken houses. Once sensed , had to find the way to remove the batches. Some local people were helping us by providing tools to remove batches . After removing batches one by one carefully we found the dead body of young girl with face destroyed fully. It was so difficult to identify it . Sad to see that lot of names ( of her age ) come up ( so many found missing ). Finally from the dress color and the location of the dead body. It was found to be Nisha – a 15 year old girl who went to buy the dry fish in one of the neighbour house during tsunami time.
The body was taken to shore and cremated there. We did not inform her mother who was in one of the relief camps. It won't do any good to her to see a semi destroyed dead body almost without face.
After that the team went to next batch with dead smell and the task continues till 3 PM lunch time and by that time 4 - 5 dead bodies were found and cremated by the team in which I am part of .
Removing the batches. In some places the dead bodies are very deep inside and the roads are all destroyed. The dozers cannot able to reach those places now and it is very difficult to remove them manually also Spreading of bad smell and germs due to the decay of dead bodies since it had been more than a week since they dead. kaveri group cannot afford to have a dozer for their own use. Time taken to remove the dead bodies which directly proportional to complexity of batch
Having work with them for one day . I really share the feeling of Thanjavur District collector who praised the kaviri group for taking the task of removing dead bodies. Many of the NGO's helping in medical aids , food & relief works . but the removal dead bodies is one of the need of the hour task to avoid spreading of deadly diseases and also considering the magnitude of risk involved in removing the 10 days decayed dead bodies, we can appreciate them,. HATS OFF TO ALL KAVIRI VOLUNTEERS.
I spoke to the head of the Kaviri group. We talked about current situation and appreciated the work by his volunteers. One of the key points is that all the volunteers are either from middle class of lower middle class and working in small small companies. Obviously NO IT BOOM in Thanjavur district. It will be better if they get the help in the following areas
Sponsors for Clouses & surgical mask. Sponsors for food for volunteers ( right now volunteers are spending their money in buying the gloves , mask & their daily expenses ). volunteers to help them in removing dead bodies To know more about the organization and if interested in helping them . the following are the contact details
P. John Britto ,
Charter President ,
Kaviri – Thanjavur district NGO's Forum,
12 , Narmada Street ,
Yagappa nagar ,
Thanjavur – 613007
TamilNadu
Phone : (04362 ) 273775
After lunch I went to see other affected areas . while kaviri team started to another area where they seemed to be more dead bodies still left **********************************************************
Some of my Observations on Affected areas:
Donot give used clothes. Nagapatinam is over flooded with used clothes and another key point is they are fishermen who had good living. Now they relocated bcos of natural disasters. so they are not kind of people who can wear used clothes. They were kept in the roads of Nagapatinam and it is going to be great task to the municipal people to clean them up.
Govt side relief work is really good though it is not excellent
There are number of medical camps provided with ATT & other anti bio medicines. Kindly put that ATT injection before proceeding for any relief works.
Volunteer groups like AID , NCC from couple of colleges are very Active
There are general complaints in the affected areas that all the relief materials are distributed in the Nagapatinam town and nothing has reached the affected areas which cannot be reached thro vehicles as of now.
Some of the really affected people are not interested in whatever relief materials provided . they are simply sitting lonely thinking of the their lost ones. Mental counseling is the real solution they need.
Roads are filled with chlorinated powder – good sign
Hotels and some shops are opened . and there was public request to open all the shops to keep normalcy . but very hard to get mineral water as they donot have stock.
Bus services are excellent. Some of the private buses provided free bus service for affected people
Nagapatinam is provided with ICICI bank with VISA supported ATM – so no need to carry your money in pockets if u want to go .
************************************************** current state
Some of the pictures taken in the nagapatinam are available in this link