Mon, Dec 26, 2005 page4

• Survivors haunted by memories of catastrophe

  SHATTERED LIVES Those spared by the tragedy are picking up the pieces, starting new lives and trying to keep their minds off the horrors a year ago

  • AP
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  They live among thousands of other survivors in a crowded refugee camp. Their tent is hot and cluttered with dirty dishes and clothes. A newborn baby cries in the corner.

  But at least the family is together.

  Fish vendor Amiruddin refused to give up on his young daughter, Putri, who was swept away from her family by the tsunami's surging waters as they clambered onto the roof of their home to escape.

  For three weeks, he searched through the rubble and the morgues of his devastated city before he found her, prompting a joyous reunion that became a symbol of hope for thousands of other victims after the Dec. 26 tsunami last year left at least 216,000 people dead or missing in a dozen countries.

  But the celebrity was too much for the shy girl with big brown eyes and dark hair, now 8. Putri stopped going to school two months ago because she was so afraid of the reporters and cameraman who followed her everywhere.

  The attention doesn't bother Putri's four brothers and sisters, however.

  "I don't mind," said 10-year-old Mirnawati. "I like it ... sometimes the journalists take pictures of me, too."

  At the TVRI refugee camp on the outskirts of Banda Aceh, the family lives with some 2,000 other survivors. Their tent is badly ventilated, chaotic and messy. There are piles of dirty laundry stacked in the corner. A motorcycle is parked in the makeshift kitchen, and a chicken dashes across the floor.

  Putri's mother Hernini refuses to complain.

  "He lost his everyone ... his wife, his two children," says Hernini, 35, pointing to her neighbor. "We're lucky. We have each other. That's the most important thing."

  Putri is a cheerful child, her mother says, but since the tsunami has become especially shy around strangers.

  For months after the family was reunited, Putri refused to leave her mother's side, sharing her bed and holding her tightly as they slept. She was afraid someone might snatch her away.

  Now Putri sleeps alone and at times plays happily with other children in the camp. She no longer jumps at loud noises and occasionally ventures to the market with her father.

  LITTLE BOY LOST

  A year after the tsunami swept away his immediate family, eight-year-old Karl Nilsson is adjusting to a whole new life -- a different home, school and friends

  The boy was found injured and alone amid the wreckage of what had been a sunny Thailand vacation for him and his family. Gone were his father, mother and two brothers.

  Now he is living with his grandparents in Boden, about 40km from his old home in Lulea and 900km north of Stockholm, according to Marie Guldstrand, a Swedish doctor whose family found the boy and brought him back to Sweden.

  Guldstrand, who keeps in close touch with the boy nicknamed Kalle, reported a recent conversation the boy had with his grandmother to show he is has getting past his ordeal. He asked her to take him to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and she replied, "Don't you think it will be a bit frightening to watch it?"

  "But he said, `I don't get scared, I have been through the tsunami,'" Guldstrand recounted.

  When the tsunami struck, he was in a hotel room on the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand with his two brothers -- Olof, 5, and Vilgot, 3. His parents, Thomas and Asa, were outdoors.

  When the murky waters subsided, his family was nowhere to be seen, and he thought he had been transported to another city.

  Guldstrand's son found Kalle, screaming as a medical worker stitched cuts on his feet without an anesthetic, at a Buddhist temple where survivors sought refuge after the tsunami. The boy was wearing only underwear and was suffering from a broken collar bone, bruises and cuts.

  Guldstrand said Kalle and his grandparents are planning a Christmas vacation abroad with several other families with children his age to keep their minds off what happened a year ago.

  "It is too tough to stay at home, but at the same time they want Kalle to be able to be with other children," she said.

  Guldstrand, whose family survived the tsunami, is not planning a trip back to Thailand this winter -- as are some survivors -- but she said she may someday accompany Nilsson back to the country.

  "That would be if Kalle asks to go, maybe in a few years," she said.

  THE PARENTS

  A year ago, the couple was devastated by the death of all their children, two daughters and a son, when the tsunami struck this southern Indian town.

  Now, they care for 16 children.

  K. Parmesvaran and his wife P. Choodamani have informally adopted 16 children, all of whom lost one parent in the tsunami. Their surviving parents cannot afford to raise them full-time.

  The couple takes care of the children's education and food needs. Their parents, most from the area's poor fishing community, visit regularly and often take their children home for weekends.

  "We are surviving because of these children," Parmesvaran, 41, said, fighting back tears on Saturday. "These children, eight boys and eight girls, have brought back the joy in our lives."

  The children range in age from 2 to 16 years old.

  Parmesvaran, who works for state-run Oil and Natural Gas Commission, recalled that it was his birthday and his children had woken him early to greet him last year on Dec. 26.

  As they were preparing to leave for church, a group of visiting relatives from his wife's village wanted to walk to the beach first, he said.

  The tsunami struck shortly after the group, which included Parmesvaran's three children, reached the beach.

  Parmesvaran survived by clinging to a tree. His wife also escaped death: she had stayed at home.
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