Villagers untouched by last week's killer waves lie in wait on roads leading to the devastated southern Indian district of Nagapattinam, hoping to snatch aid intended for others.
For unsuspecting relief workers, the women and children squatting in groups along the roadside with hands outstretched may give the impression of people shattered and in dire need of help and supplies.
But the villagers, mainly laborers and farm workers, are cashing in on the disaster, treating it as a lucrative source of food, water, rice and clothes.
Most of the women pretend to cry and tell the story of how the tsunamis devastated their homes and destroyed their livelihood. But a trip to their village 3km away reveals a different story.
Not a single house has been touched by the giant wall of water which smashed into the southern Indian coastline Dec. 26, killing at least 9,986 people on the mainland and in the far-flung Andaman and Nicobar islands, and left 5,679, missing and presumed dead, according to official figures.
Some 6,023 people died in Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu, which has recorded 7,932 dead so far.
On the outskirts, a group of children are posted to flag down relief trucks on the way to the worst-hit Nagapattinam town laden with medicine, mats, stoves, food and other supplies.
Muthuswami Ilangovan, a 15-year-old boy, heads a team of more than 20 girls and younger boys to grab supplies. They shout and mime signs of hunger by pointing fingers to their mouths in front of any passing vehicle.
"I've lost everything. The waters entered our village. All homes were destroyed," Ilangovan told a reporter.
"During the last couple of days we've managed to get bags of rice and clothes," he said. "Some trucks and cars stop when they see us while others just speed past."
But the team of reporters took Ilangovan home to his Mathankadi village and found his family safe and house standing tall. He laughed and swiftly vanished into the narrow bylanes.
The Indian Citizens' Initiative, a private non-governmental organisation, said it was seeking to tackle the problem of aid freeloaders.
"We've set up a coordination committee among the NGOs to try to ensure relief reaches the right people," said Clifton Rozario, a senior official with the group.
At the same time, he said, Nagapattinam district was hard-hit by a lack of rain.
"They might not be affected by the tsunamis but they've been affected by drought. They tell us, `At least give us the leftovers.'"
More than 500 villagers, mainly women wearing colorful saris, are engaged in the same trade as Ilangovan. In the late evenings, they cart home bagfulls of supplies along with bamboo sleeping mats intended those made homeless.
Fifty-two year-old Nayakam, who goes by one name, is among one group of around half a dozen women who squat for hours on the road.
"On some days, we sit from morning to evening. My whole family has been affected and I've nowhere to go. The government is not giving as any relief and they are only giving it to people near the sea," she lamented.
"I have lost my family. If you've the money, I'll accept it," said Nayakam.
Another woman in the group, Indrani, chided her in the local Tamil language not to tell "so many lies."
"You're exaggerating too much. Don't say people died in your village, just say you have lost everything," she said.
N. Prabhu, a farmer who earns 75 rupees (US$1.60) a day, said he was forced to beg for relief as he was poor. About a third of India's one billion-plus population live below the poverty line.
"These are hard times for people in this district," Prabhu said. "They started giving away clothes and I took plenty. Rice and other supplies followed."
Policemen on rounds of the city chase away the villagers and at times cane them.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS