Sikandar Hasan estava em uma floresta quando a tsunami ocorreu. Quando voltou para Galle, no Sri Lanka, testemunhou a devastação do local, a fuga e o sofrimento de pessoas, o trabalho de reconstrução e os freqüentes assaltos.

Leia abaixo o depoimento na íntegra (em inglês).




From: Hasan Zaidi

LEAD Pakistan, Cohort 5

hzaidi@cyber.net.pk

My brother in law, Sikandar Hasan was in Galle (Sri Lanka) when the waves hit - and barely survived. Thought I would share this with all of you as a first hand report...

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your emails and your concerns. I have learned from this experience how important it is to feel supported by friends. Any one email or phone call has helped immensely.

On Friday and Saturday as was back in Galle and Unawatuna, the village where my mother lives. For the first time I saw the extent of the tragedy outside the village. You see, when it happened we stayed two days in the jungle, and then came back through the inland because the coastal road was cut off. This time we went through the seaside. It was strange to travel with people from Colombo that had not seen anything apart from tv pictures. They also are touched and shocked by what they see, but in a very different form than for those of us who lived through it. I do not know for whom it is the hardest though.

At about 30 kilometers south of Colombo the devastation appears. And then it never ceases. The same scenery kilometre after kilometre. Village after village of destruction, people waiting on what use to be a house, fishing boats hundred metres away from the sea, over the rail track. And cranes and bulldozers and people working, cleaning up. And the sea. The sea always present, looking at us, waiting there and witnessing the destruction that it has provoked.

We arrived in Galle. The fort is intact, the naval base has been heavily damaged and many soldiers died. It is said that the weapons have been looted. The prison is not far away and the prison has no more walls, many prisoners have escaped. The bus terminal is there, but damaged. The commercial centre behind and around the bus terminal is extremely damaged. I would say that a third of the building have collapsed, while the others have had their shop and their entire ground floor washed away.

Two weeks after the wave there was not a single shop that could have reopened. One major shop keeper of the area called my mother to tell her he was leaving right away with his whole family to Australia. I am afraid many that can afford to do so will do so. The entire fishing fleet of Galle, included large boats, is on the road! Some boats have been gently put on the shore, and do not seem to be damaged. Others are completely crushed. They were starting to attempt at putting them back in the water.

At the village things have changed from two days after the wave. The place has been cleaned up a little, and this is making the extent of the devastation even clearer to see. But it is the people that have changed. The day after most of us were still desensitized, we all were asking about each other house and family, the answers were often terrible, but this was said on a casual note. Now people have realized. And they break up. Everyone is crying. No one is staying at night in the village, even if their house is intact. The feeling is too weird. Also some "bad boys" are roaming at night armed with knives and iron bars. They are looting all what they can. The only hotel that has remained opened has 17 security men! So the inhabitants come in the morning, do the cleaning up and the talking, but in the evening they go back to some family higher up or to the temple on the top of the hill where I have stayed the first 2 nights.

Talking to the village, I would say people need two things in priority: the security of a livelihood and psychological counseling. If they can get some work and income and if they can be helped with their depressions they will have rebuilt their houses before any national international or non governmental organizations even starts to finish their meetings!

Talking about this, Jaya is opening a field office in Galle, but he is finding it very difficult to set up a dialogue with the local authorities who do not know where to start. We are waiting for the 15th, at which date the government is suppose to come up with some plan for action.

I am going back to Galle this afternoon and will be present at the village level meeting taking place tomorrow in Unawatuna. From what I have witnessed, aid arrived the next day, food rations. It was coming from Sri Lankan NGOs. Since then nothing has happened. People have cleaned up, collected the bodies, emptied the water wells, and did everything at the village level without any outside help apart from a field health centre for first aid.

On the way back to Colombo we stopped and Ikaduwa, where the train disaster took place. In this village around the train nothing has subsisted. No house left and this even a kilometer inside the land. The mass graves have been dug now and there. A policeman told us that 2500 people have been buried from the train. That is the passengers plus the villagers that had seek shelter in and on the train after the first, weaker, wave came in.

As for me I feel out of place in the "normality" of Colombo, and uneasy and anxious after a day or two in the devastated areas. For the moment though I am staying here.

Thank you for your support and lots of love.
Sikandar