KARUNAGAPPALLY/VIJAYAWADA, 1 January 2005 — Still struggling to rehabilitate hundreds of thousands of people displaced by towering tsunami waves across southern India and Andaman Nicobar Islands, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday said the government was planning a special fund to rehabilitate orphaned women and children.
The government is also considering a package to adopt the children left with nobody to rely on. “We will take special care for the women and children who lost their breadwinners,” Manmohan told reporters at Karunagappally in Quilon district where 134 people were dead when two villages were entirely wiped out.
Over 12,000 people are reportedly perished in India in Sunday’s tsunami disaster. Thousands are still missing.
Manmohan reached the Kerala capital of Trivandrum on Wednesday night and surveyed the affected areas, including the worst affected neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. He left for Andhra Pradesh from here yesterday.
It was not easy for him to console the people living in the camps and hospitals after the killer waves wiped out their villages along the coasts. Many women and the aged were seen breaking down and others complaining of inadequate facilities in the camps.
“The loss of life cannot be compensated. We cannot bring them back. The government is committed to do whatever can be done to help the affected people to restart their life,” he said after visiting the injured and displaced at the Karunagappally Taluk hospital.
He said the displaced people could not be sent back from the camps to their villages immediately, as time was needed to rebuild the basic infrastructure.
Kerala state government has decided to start rehabilitation efforts from Monday. The prime minister distributed the state government’s compensation of 100,000 rupees each to the families of the people who perished in the waves.
Reacting to Thursday’s wrong alert and panic along the southern coasts, Manmohan said tsunami was something new to India and that created a lot of confusion.
“We are capable of meeting all challenges,” he assured people at a relief camp in nearby Alleppey district. He visited the camps at Muthukulam and Puthukulangara.
Manmohan said immediate steps would be taken for construction of seawall along the vulnerable areas of Alappad and Azheekkal. The army has been directed to build two bailey bridges in the area within a month. He assured to provide with new boats and fishing implements to the anglers whose hamlets were washed away.
“I’m here to share your sorrow and anguish. We will do everything to help you lead a life of dignity,” he told them.
Addressing a press conference at Raj Bhavan in Trivandrum on Thursday evening, Manmohan said he had turned down offers of assistance from world leaders, including US President George Bush, to overcome the crisis.
“As of now, we have informed them that we had enough resources to meet the challenge and to manage the situation. We will certainly seek help in future if we require them,” Manmohan said. “President Bush personally spoke to me and offered assistance,” he added.
India has joined US, Japan and Australia to form a disaster relief coalition to assist other countries battling with tsunami attack. There were also reports that India was rejecting foreign aid because of its experience in the past when it had to accept large consignments of invalid or of poor quality materials.
Manmohan said India would join other countries in setting up early warning system to deal with natural calamities. “Our immediate concern is to provide food, clothes, utensils, drinking water, and healthcare in the camps and textbooks for schoolchildren. We are looking at long-term rehabilitation plans of the people displaced by the calamity,” he said.
During his 75-minute stopover at Gannavaram airport near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, he met some affected families who were brought in from Machilipatnam, listened to their tale of woes, disbursed cash assistance and distributed fishing nets.
He went round an exhibition put up by the State Disaster Management Department on the devastation caused by the tsunami in four south coastal districts - Nellore, Prakasam, Guntur and Krishna. He held a meeting with Chief Minister Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy and state officials where he was updated on the loss of life and property caused by the calamity.
Addressing newsmen before winding up his short visit, the prime minister said that the Central government has released five billion rupees as an advance from the National Calamity Contingency Fund. He had also announced 100,000 rupees from the PM’s National Relief Fund as compensation for the families of those who lost their lives in the calamity.
