Tsunami hits close to home

I spent this holiday in Madras, which is located in Southern India. The day after Christmas, at around six in the morning, I felt the ground vigorously shake. My family members all rushed downstairs to evacuate the building.

When I first felt the earthquake, I thought it was some sort of construction going on in the apartment above mine. It didn't dawn on me until that it was an earthquake until the rest of my family woke up and went outside.There was an earthquake at my home three years ago, that my family had been in, so there wasn't too much panic this time, it was more like "just get out of here."

We were in shock really. My family and I were just awed that this had happened. It didn't really hit us until the next day that the focus of the disaster was on the tidal wave and not the earthquake.

The killer wave struck approximately 300 yards from my apartment at that time. Later we realized what we thought was an earthquake was actually the tremors from the aftershock several thousand miles away in another part of the continent.

We saw the secondary wave. The waves looked very scary, so I can't even imagine what the primary wave looked like.

It looked very destructive and very powerful, considering the shore where I live is a very gentle ocean.

The day after the wave attacked the coastline I visited the beach and it looked more like a desert with the trees leafless and no sign of water, since the water had retreated by so much.

I commend international media for their widespread coverage of the recent tsunami tragedy. To date approximately 212,000 people have been killed by this phenomenon. The worst hit country was Sri Lanka, where it is estimated that two-thirds of the country has been destroyed. It is even more unfortunate considering it is a country that has just come out of 30 years of civil war.

UNICEF estimates that up to one third of the deaths were children. Children have been orphaned, and even those that have been more fortunate still have psychological scars.

It is also feared that illegal human trafficking could follow involving helpless children. Organizations and governments must work quickly to prevent this from happening.

The main groups affected in South Asia were fishermen and those residing in fishermen villages. Both South India and Sri Lanka have a prevalent fishing sector in the economy; as a result this too was affected.

There wasn't any destruction where I was; mostly just the smaller, poorer fishing villages were hit badly. The wealthier areas were hardly affected at all because they are further from the coastline. Even two weeks after the tragedy, body parts such as fingers and heads were still washing up on the shore. When we drove into the city during the day there were endless lines of people forced to wait outside under the scorching sun to get financial compensation for their property loss.

In the state of Tamil Nadu, the government has supplied each family with 100,000 rupees (approximately $2300) to rebuild, yet it costs 70,000 rupees just to buy a boat and start up the fishermen profession again. Private funding is essential right now because the Indian government has refused international aid from other governments. The generosity from individuals all over the globe has been substantial, but for people, especially children, happiness is a still non-existent feeling for a long time to come.

If you are interested in donating, www.cnn.com/tsunami provides a list of organizations that are involved with the relief work.