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Dec. 29, 2004 I was sitting down to a typical Malaysian breakfast when the table shuddered. A few glasses tinkled, some eyebrows were raised and then all returned to normal. My dahl sauce was hotter than usual and I could tell that the chef had no idea how to make a decent pancake. After breakfast my wife and I ambled off down into the little town, blissfully unaware of what had just happened. Seven hundred kilometres away a young boy was playing in the gentle swells along the Sumatran coast, his childish sandcastle slowing taking shape. Looking up, he noticed a dark line racing across the ocean towards the beach. Fascinated he stood up for a better view. The tsunami wave hit shallow water and revealed its terrifying power. Slowing, it reared nine metres above him before sweeping him away. His parents have so far spent eighteen hours staring into the faces of hundreds of dead children, wishing his face would not be there yet hoping he would, so they could find closure and mourn. Along another beach, a five year old girl stumbles in pain, crying unceasingly. Her dress is ripped and and blood runs down her face. She looks up at every adult she meets and asks the same question: have you seen my mommy? She gets the same reply. Her brother lies among some rocks, his face shattered by the impact of bone with granite. Dead fish are his garments now and the naughty twinkle in his eye that his mother loved so much has gone. Not that she could see him: she lies buried under five metres of debris, rotting. Of his father there is no sign. A young Dutch woman stands on a small rise that overlooks Phuket in Thailand. Tears and blood run down her face. Her clothes are missing yet she is unaware of her nakedness. No one else notices either: their eyes are searching for loved ones and her exposed flesh has no meaning now. A wound weeps blood from her right calf and her left arm hangs uselessly by her side. She is the lucky one: she lives! Her fiancee was not so lucky: he went for a swim before breakfast and never returned. Her good arm touched the unborn child she knows is growing inside her, now fatherless. The island is not very big. Its population never topped two hundred. Now anyone can count the living on one hand. No house stands complete anywhere on the island. No communications exist with the mainland some eighty kilometres away. No boats survived the wave's ferocity. No food, no water and no medical supplies. The tiny clinic floats five hundred metres off the beach sinking slowly, like their community. No one knows they survived, no one knows that soon they will die from thirst, hunger and disease. No one knows and they cannot inform anyone. All the relief aid is going to areas where the Western media can spotlight the plight of tourists. Areas like Phuket, Lankawi and Penang. Yet scattered across the ocean lie some thirty tiny islands, each once a thriving self-sufficient community, each now dying or dead. What do I say to those children stumbling anongst the rubble of their homes and lives, looking for mom and dad? What can be said to the mother who holds her dead daughter to her breast weeping? How can that tiny island rebuild itself when all life and all hope is now extinct? To date sixty thousand people have died and some one hundred thousand are still missing. Will they be found, alive? On December 25th some fifty thousand families laughed and sang as they celebrated Christmas or just enjoyed the public holiday. Children with bright eyes full of life and hope tore the wrapping paper off countless gifts and held the present up for all to see, their hearts filled with such happiness. One day later those same children lie dead or dying across countless beaches, amongst the remains of hundreds of villages and in thousands of makeshift mortuaries. The presents have long since been swept out to sea. When you woke up this morning, did you think of that little girl crying desperately for her mommy? As a dad, could you imagine how fathers must have felt when the wave ripped their children from their grasp and now they are dead in some stench-filled tent or worse, they are missing? As you ate your breakfast or dinner, did you ponder on what the surviving islanders scattered across the sea will eat today? They cannot call you for help, they cannot tell you that disease may kill those remaining and their only freshwater well is polluted with dead fish and sea water. All they can do is hope: hope that someone will come with water and food. If not, then those who died will be the lucky ones! Tragedy always affects someone. ------------ About the author: Ian Campbell is the author of the novel "The Fifth Cylinder." Ian tells us: "I love writing about issues that we as people wrestle with, both the big and small issues that can affect our lives. Looming just over the horizon are technologies that will utterly transform our communities and our lives. I love writing about how we as a society will live, love and war in that timeframe." Ian lives in Kuala Lumpur with his wife Kaz and is busy working on his second novel. Email: ianc28258@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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