On Boxing Day 2004 a devastating tsunami ripped through villages in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, killing more than 230,000 people. Millions of people from Sumatra to Somalia lost their homes, possessions and means of making a living.
Laura Storr, from our communications team, shares her experience of meeting Vinashathamy, a fisherman from Navaledi in eastern Sri Lanka. In his community over half the population were killed by the devastating wave.
Vinashathamy and Ujini
Vinashathamy was one of the first people I met just months after the storm had hit. As we sat under one of the few remaining trees that had not been swept away, he told me about the moment it happened.
“I heard some noise, people shouting that the waves were coming. I ran and picked up my youngest daughter and son. Then the wave came and hit me, and both my children were knocked out of my arms.”
Moments later, desperately searching for his children, he spotted his youngest daughter, 11-year-old Ujini. “I tied a rope around my daughter and hoisted her into a tree. Then the second wave came. I thought I was going to die, but I held onto her hair with one hand and the trunk of the tree with the other. When I brought her down, she was unconscious.” Vinashathamy managed to save his daughter that day, but not his son. Later that day he found his son’s body.
Vinashathamy and Ujini managed to rebuild their lives with the help of our Church partner, Caritas. With CAFOD’s support they built themselves a temporary shelter while they waited for their new house to be built. All the houses built by our partners in Sri Lanka were planned and built in consultation with local people. Caritas gave the family a grant, and Vinashathamy hired local contractors to complete the work. Ujini said: “The new house is better than before. I’m happy here.”
How your donations helped families to rebuild
Catholics in England and Wales showed extraordinary compassion in the aftermath, donating more than £10 million in what remains CAFOD’s largest ever emergency appeal. We also received nearly £18 million from the joint appeal launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee.
As well as providing emergency relief, across the region CAFOD’s partners built 4,500 new homes, 26 schools and helped 55,000 people to restart their businesses through replacing equipment and stock, providing training and setting up savings groups.
What we have learned
A major part of CAFOD’s response to the tsunami and other recent disasters has been helping communities to prepare for natural hazards in the future. In the ten years since the tsunami, a lot has changed. There have been hundreds of other natural disasters including droughts in East Africa and Niger, earthquakes in Haiti and Indonesia, huge floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and typhoons in the Philippines and Myanmar.
And since the tsunami I think we’ve learned an important lesson. Helping people to reduce the risks caused by disasters is crucial. Building strong enough housing that will withstand tsunamis and typhoons. Helping people to find different ways of earning a living so they are not as reliant on climatic conditions. And setting up early-warning systems that help communities to react quickly when disaster strikes.
But for me, the main thing I have taken away from my time spent with tsunami survivors is the belief that, even in the most devastating of circumstances, by standing together and helping each other, people can recover from tragedy.