When tsunami hit the shores of Colachel in Kanyakumari District, the fishing village close to the sea was wiped out, and the people ran to higher grounds. The waves covered an old canal which runs in between the village and the higher grounds, and many people fell in that canal and died. Some were swept away. The government provided temporary thatched sheds as emergency measure in different sites called colonies.
    As Jopa Ministries operates in Kanyakumari district, South Indian Charities rushed to the spot, and made a study of their immediate needs and on-going requirements.  We thank the pastors and the members of Park Avenue United Methodist Church for their generous donation, which enabled us to reach out  immediately.

     People from Peryianaki Colony and  Singaravelian Colony were helped with lockable steel cabinets, cooking utilities, kattumaram, furniture, sewing machines. Some were helped to start vending businesses.

           I visited the area in the first week of November , 2005. What I saw was unbelievable. The families live in thatched sheds provided by the government built as colonies,  I heard stories of fear and hopelessness. They lost their possessions and loved ones. One young woman lost her fiancé to the waves. The wedding was scheduled for the next day. The help they need to start all over is not there yet. 

          The following pictures were taken during my visit . The mass grave stands as a gut-wrenching reminder of this grave tragedy. 368 people were buried under the sand, and pipes are erected to reduce the odor. The thatched sheds form colonies, and  many families are sheltered there. Those who received the steel cabinets store their belongings in them and are very grateful.  The Bible that you see on the cement block was the only one that was not swept away by the tidal waves from a small church. . You can see the canal on one side and the sea on the other side, and the fishing village is in between.                             

 
                        The mass grave

 
                  Sign on the grave site

 
           People live in temporary sheds

 
 The village is between the sea and the canal

 
        A teenager wondering what next

 
        Steel cabinet for storing whatever left

 
                Kattumaram for fishing

 
        Different colonies set up in the village.

 Devastation all over the village

 
          Water rose up to the first floor

 
    Another part of the wiped out village

 
           The Bible that survived the waves

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