JEDDAH, 9 January 2005 — The family of Muhammad Uduman, 50, a laborer working in Jeddah, lived in a two-bedroom asbestos-sheet-roofed house with borrowed electricity just 10 meters from the beach near Lunawa, in the Moratuwa Municipality when tsunami hit Sri Lanka. His wife, son and three daughters barely escaped with their lives, but have lost everything else.
On the morning of Dec. 26, Uduman’s wife, Jeseema, was in the kitchen of her small home with her 17-year-old son nearby doing his homework. Two of Uduman’s three daughters were away that morning visiting a relative nearby. The third daughter, Hafizah, aged seven, was returning from the outdoor bathroom when the waves hit, according to Uduman.
“My daughter screamed as she came out of the bathroom and saw what she described as a large mass of smoke-like water rushing toward her. At the same time, my wife and son began to hear the screams of other people. Within seconds they went outside to see what was happening. They all saw a large unusual wave coming toward them, which was two to three meters high. My son reached his sister just as the waves were hitting and was able to grab her hand. A strong swimmer, he managed to lift his sister above his head and floated with her downstream amidst floating human objects until they came across a damaged boat that they were able to hang on to as they were washed along downstream. Fortunately there was a rooftop that they managed to climb onto. The water level was diminishing gradually within 10-12 minutes. A large group of people rushed to the area after a few minutes while my son and daughter were on top of the roof and got them and nine others down.
“Hafizah was shocked. No smile, no crying, no feelings of happiness as her mother was missing. My son was very anxious about locating his mother, not even thinking about the fact that he just saved his sister’s life. He was not aware of any flood, wave or tsunami anywhere else, so, he didn’t think about the well-being of his other two sisters.
“Soon after landing from the roof, he was told that my wife, his mother, was lying half-naked nearby, unconscious. A Sinhalese woman carried Hafizah while my son rushed to his mother, who he thought was dead. She was half-naked being assisted by some fishermen providing her with a shirt and a skirt given to them by a helpful man and a girl,” he told Arab News.
Uduman was one of only a handful of people to contact the Sri Lankan Embassy.
For staff at Arab News, and at sister publication Malayalam News, the tsunami tragedy hit close to home with the death of the daughter and sister of one of our office staff who had just joined the organization six months ago. He has since gone to Sri Lanka, but promised to return when the remainder of his family is settled.
According to the Sri Lankan Embassy, Saudi Arabia is home to a third of Sri Lankans living and working outside their country. “We anticipated a flood of calls and requests for aid, but that has not happened which surprises me because one-third of all overseas Sri Lankans work here in Saudi Arabia,” Sri Lankan Ambassador Ibrahim Sahib Ansar told Arab News.
“Only two requests for aid have been received, and they were at Sri Lanka’s Dammam Consulate. We have all the facilities in place to provide our citizens here with the latest information and services pertaining to this national disaster. I invite our citizens to contact us,” Ansar said.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Sri Lankans in the Kingdom who have been personally affected by tsunami in one way or another. The embassy and consulates are available to answer their questions or provide whatever aid is necessary. All they have to do is call us or come in,” the ambassador added.
