Church Aid Agencies Help Tsunami Survivors Get Back to Feet

Chennai – Christian aid groups have mobilized themselves in India's tsunami–affected areas in what is described as the Church's biggest and most challenging relief operation in history.

“The effort is being focused on remote areas where no government machinery exists,” explained Father Varghese Mattamana, deputy director of Caritas India, the Indian Catholic Church's agency for relief and development work. “We are spreading across the entire affected area to provide systematic short and long–term support to the affected people.”

The tsunami that struck the southern coasts of India as well as Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malaysia has, till date, claimed over 1,50,000 lives and has rendered homeless around 5 million people. Officials of rescue teams fear that the number of those dead can even go up.

In India, alone, the state of Tamil Nadu, that was worst–struck, has recorded over 6,500 dead. According to news reports, the total number of dead in India has crept beyond 14,000. Several thousands are also feared dead in Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory 1,000 kilometers off the eastern mainland coast.

The other affected states are Andhra Pradesh and Orissa on the eastern coast and Kerala on the south–western coast.

Fr. Mattamana said his organization has joined Catholic Relief Services (CRS), its U.S. counterpart, and social service organizations of the Indian Catholic dioceses to carry out "the most challenging" relief operation, the Indian Church has ever undertaken in the history.

The Indian Church agency also is coordinating with international aid agencies such as Action Aid, Oxfam, Red Cross and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), to assess the situation, target resources and bring in more volunteers, Fr. Mattamana said.

Numerous volunteers already are pouring into Tamil Nadu from Catholic institutions around the country. However, Father Mattamana says it is "fruitless for volunteers to come to the disaster zone without knowing where to go and what to do."

They plan to complete their relief plan in a week, "then the agencies will focus on long–term efforts," the Caritas India official explained.

The priest said that immediately after the disaster struck Dec. 26, his organization rushed officers from its six regions and head office in New Delhi to Chennai, from where they went to key affected areas to oversee relief.

Some bishops in Tamil Nadu also have gone to various sites in six of the state's 11 dioceses to supervise relief operations.

Those killed in the tsunami include four family members of Caritas India chairperson Bishop Peter Remigius of Kumbakonam. The family lived in Kanniyakumari district at the southernmost tip of the mainland.

Another victim was Sister Maria Goretti, superior of Adoration Convent in Pondicherry. She was returning from a Marian shrine along with four other nuns when the waves engulfed them. The other nuns scrambled to safety.

Caritas has set up a computerized office in Nagapattinam, one of the hardest–hit areas, and converted its regional office in Chennai into a nerve center for its relief activities in the state.

According to Fr. Mattamana, chaos and confusion are still prevailing in the region as panic has gripped the survivors. “Relief is not reaching the actual victims (who) are in shock but we are trying to coordinate with the government machinery to bring the situation back to normalcy,” he added.

The Caritas workers in the field are experienced in crisis situations, and have worked in regions hit by earthquakes and cyclones, he said.

A medical team from the Catholic Hospital Association of India (CHAI) has joined the Caritas team, which also has support from local health institutions.

Seven experts from CRS, two German consultants from Caritas International headquarters and another from Australia will assist us in our relief efforts, the Indian priest said. Caritas International is a confederation of 162 social and charitable agencies set up by local Catholic hierarchies around the world.

Incidentally, the foreign aid workers are coming in, even though the Indian government has refused to accept help from the United Nations and other countries, saying it can handle the situation.

India has already dispatched aid to Sri Lanka, its island neighbour where the loss of life has been even greater and is coordinating with Australia, Japan and United States in providing aid to other affected nations. However, some groups have condemned that move, saying the government was slow in providing aid to its own far–flung islands like Andaman and Nicobar.

Meanwhile, the Catholic organizations have set up 97 relief camps in Tamil Nadu where relief and support operations are being carried out. Each camp has from 500 to 2,000 tsunami survivors who are being provided with cooked food, basic clothing, bed sheets and medical aid.

The affected dioceses in Tamil Nadu have mobilized teams of up to 300 to clear the debris left behind by the killer waves and identify and dispose of bodies. The Church groups also have deployed counsellors to give psychological support to victims. After the 2001 earthquake in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Caritas funded a program to train 100 people to counsel disaster victims. “Some 40 of them are already here,” Father Mattamana said.

To meet the unprecedented challenges of the tsunami disaster, the EFICOR, the New Delhi–based relief and rehabilitation agency, is partnering with two other Christian organizations — the Discipleship Center and the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA).

Meanwhile, Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA), the main Protestant social–service agency in India, has opened 11 aid centers in the southern regions immediately after the tsunami struck. “We have now mobilized our staff of about 50 from around the country,” director Sushant Agarwal said.

CASA is supplying food and drinking water to about 30,000 people in Tamil Nadu and 10,000 people each in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. In Andaman and Nicobar Islands, it is working through the Church of North India diocese there.

CASA also is providing clothes, blankets, sleeping mats and water pitchers. The agency plans to spend Rs. 5.5 crore (US$11.62 million) for 300,000 affected people, Agarwal said. “But no money is enough, given the enormity of the disaster,” he added.

Following the initial relief efforts, CASA plans to build houses and repair about 20,000 others. It also plans to help reclaim land from the tsunami–ravaged coastal region and help fishermen form cooperative societies.

“We plan to focus on the livelihood of the survivors,” Agarwal said.

For the long term, CASA plans to build 40 centers on the coastal belt to deal with cyclones and floods. The multipurpose buildings would serve as schools or community centers at normal times and shelter up to 2,000 people during emergencies. Similar centers built in Andhra Pradesh after a cyclone hit the state in 1977 have proven to be very effective.