The earthquake/tsunami disaster just keeps getting worse and worse. Many people and sites are working to get aid workers, donations and supplies out, and refugees, survivor messages, and information back.
BoingBoing has been covering the relief effort extensively.
The IRC has got a family contact database and also a disaster clearinghouse.
Google has a special link to disaster relief organisations, websites, and blogs.
When the first wave came in, we were happy that we were seeing something that was really strange, but it was a very mild wave. Then the sea receded back, and we didn’t know what that meant.
It was like someone had pulled the plug on the ocean, and crags and outcroppings of rock inside the sea were visible for the first time in years.
We just watched it, and I was taking photographs of it. Then came this massive wall of water. What did I do? I just sat and watched it. I just watched it and watched it as it came in – it took maybe four seconds from the point when I was aware of it to the point when it hit the hotel.
Those four seconds were like a lifetime. Even if someone runs at you with a knife, you can hit him back, or run away or claim insurance or whatever. This time, there was nothing I could do. I could only watch, and it was coming in, and it hit the crags, and I saw those people on the crags just being flung into the air like confetti, just blown out of the water.
Yesterday I listened to a report on The World with a man named Arjuna Seneviratna, who was trying to deal with the fact of his own survival after witnessing the unimaginable. He told of watching, watching, watching as a wall of water came ashore at Beruwela, Sri Lanka – the second wave, which was far more devastating than the first – and of seeing scores of people “just being flung into the air, like confetti.”
He struggled to explain how he survived; he’s not sure, but thinks that if he’d been farther inland he would have been beaten to death by debris rather than drowning. He speaks as if he could be a writer or a poet, struggling to put image and mood on paper. His sister is also a writer.
Then he struggled to explain to the interviewer how he’s coping – “I am drinking a lot… I’ve got a bottle of whatever is here… and it’s not helping me. I’m as lucid as I was.” He’s trying but failing to forget what he witnessed and trying not to think of the many international friends he made at the dance clubs the night before who are now dead or are frantically searching for bodies. When he was asked why so many were dancing and celebrating in the clubs that night, he replied disbelievingly, “It was Christmas.”
It’s quite a load for one person to bear. I hope he knows that simply by bearing witness to the onslaught of the tsunami, he does a service for the dead and injured, and brings the tale to the rest of the world. He may not believe that he is doing much other than drinking and trying to get past those moments when he simply stood and watched, however. But to that I’d say, “they also serve who stand and watch.”
He was finally able to contact a sister who lives in the US and let her know that he was all right, and then they both were interviewed for the news program. She mentioned that she was getting what news she could via Internet radio, because there’s at least one Sri Lankan station online. In the end, Arjuna likened the experience to the feeling he got when 9-11 happened – he was on the Continental Divide in the Colorado Rockies at the time, and like many others noticed the profound silence that fell over America when all the planes were grounded for the three days’ ground hold. I remembered that same sense of unease, listening for the sound of aircraft late at night. He said, “There’s a drone, that nobody really notices, until the drone stops. My nation is silent right now. ”
And now I worry about Arjuna – is he all right? Will he be all right? And will my nation respond to that silence with action?
Audio link is here (Windows Media).
Related news story is at BBC News | South Asia