A state of shock Churches support traumatized tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka Unable to hold back tears, the man stands weeping in a street in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. He lost his daughter in the Dec. 26 tsunami. She didn't die in Dambulla, their hometown in the center of the country. Tragically her parents had sent her to her grandparents in heavily destroyed Matara on the south coast. "Now she is dead," he says, sobbing and shaking his head. "I don't want to go home. There is my wife sitting and crying, and I cannot do anything." Sri Lanka is a nation in emotional shock. In Trincomalee, Lilly Theresa hasn't talked since the disaster took her four brothers and two sisters. Terrance Sylvester, a Methodist pastor, takes care of the 17-year-old. He coordinates the relief work of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, a partner of the ELCA in Action By Churches Together International, in an area where half a dozen villages were completely washed out. Sylvester lost 24 parishioners, more than half of them children. Padmal Widanagamange, a 26-year-old lifeguard, survived a train accident near Galle that killed at least 1,700 people, including ELCA member Tamara Mendis (February, page 35). He grieves the loss of his sister, uncle and aunt. The Buddhist gets some consolation by visiting his neighbor, a Methodist pastor. "The pastor has always helped me," he says. Widanagamange seems dazed while describing how the train stopped when the tsunami came. When a car with a baby in it and a woman clinging to a palm tree floated by, he jumped into the water and brought them into the train. The second wave pushed his compartment into the water. Under water, Widanagamange tried to cling to the train. He resurfaced to see trees and debris washing toward him, killing people. He went under water again where he thought it would be safe. After that, the water was clear, he says, adding, "With the railway guard I could help 25 people out of the train." Later he found his sister's and uncle's bodies, but not his aunt's. Widanagamange can't stand to be alone with all these memories. He can't even distract himself with work since the garment factory where he was employed was destroyed. Jayasiri Peiris, the Anglican priest who serves as NCCSL general secretary, sees countless cases of traumatized people. Church workers must do a lot of listening, Peiris says, adding that he council began trauma counseling in January, setting up a special branch for medical and psychosocial work. Camps in church buildings In the Batticaloa area on Sri Lanka's east coast, the council coordinates medical assistance for 10 camps. Five are in church buildings packed with thousands of people sleeping on thin floor mats. In Batticaloa's Muslim Quarter, 1,000 residents are confirmed dead, says Nadarajah Arulnathan, a Methodist pastor who coordinates NCCSL relief efforts here. The tsunami killed his sister and 18 other relatives. But he has little time to reflect on that loss. From early morning until late at night, he organizes the council's disaster response program. "It is a big challenge to feed them," he says. "There are also orphans to care for," says Arulnathan, who has taken charge of two children who lost their parents. He is pleased that here nothing beyond logistics stands in the way of relief—not caste, not ethnicity, not religious affiliations. "People help each other," he says, describing how Muslims, Buddhists and Christians come together to respond to the emergency. Plans have begun to resettle people at least 550 yards away from the ocean. "But people are not ready to go back," Arulnathan adds, saying some have suffered such severe shock they haven't even come to ask for assistance. "People do not talk much at the moment. Some ask themselves why they could escape. And then there is nobody to help them identify those who died. "But their suffering has been going on for years. They were affected by the 20-year civil war, by regular floods [such as] the ones in the last three months and now by the tsunami." |
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