Fishermens Stories
Stories from FISHERMEN on The Bay of Bengal Dec 26th 2004
These stories are being collected to assist the international tsunami community in creating guidelines to help people on the sea, in future tsunamis.
If possible, please try to include information about the following:
1) Location of fishing spot, type/size/keel of fishing boat, approximate water depth, how was the water before the tsunami? what type of fish were you fishing for? how? were you attached to nets? anchored? trolling? did you have a good catch? how big of a load? did you lose it?
2) How did you learn about the tsunami, what time was it
3) What did you do
4) What happened:
-appearance of wave or waves
-did you observe a drawdown of the water?
-how many waves or water surges?
-how long did the unusual wave or current activity last?
5) How did you or your group fare? Deaths or injuries?
6) How did you and your boat fare? Did it sink or flip?
7) Did you see any marine wildlife acting up before or during?
Any additional comments
Please post and find the Fishermens stories by using the "comments" button, here:
posted by birdieee at 6:11 PM
3 Comments:
30,000 Thai Fisherman lose livelihoods, says UN Assessment
7 January, Phuket,Thailand -- Fishing villages and farms wiped out by the tsunami along the Pang Na coast of Thailand have left 30,000 families without any means of earning a living, according to an assessment conducted this week by the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization. The aim of the three-day mission was to determine the impact of the disaster on non-tourist areas.
The destruction of more than 3,300 fishing trawlers has left tens of thousands of fishing families without work, affecting roughly 100,000 people. “Some of these fishing boats were also used to shuttle tourists. It’s a double whammy for communities dependent on these boats for their livelihoods: No boats, no fishing. No boats, no tourism,” says Hakan Bjorkman, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP in Thailand.
More than 500 fishing villages along the coast have been devastated by the tsunami, according to the assessment. Several thousand fishing cages were also destroyed, wiping out the groupa and sea bass catches that are especially lucrative for the local fisherman supplying Thai restaurants. In addition, the waters flooded more than 225 hectares of productive agricultural land and killed 54,000 livestock.
“We need to move from emergency relief to long-term rebuilding as soon as possible,” says Hakan Bjorkman. “Emergency food and medicines are coming in and keeping people alive now, but we must get people back on their feet for the long haul. Boats need to be repaired. Low-interest credit schemes need to be put in place.”
To date, official casualty estimates are 5,246 dead, 10,306 injured and 4,499 people missing. However, the death toll is expected to continue to rise.
Initial estimates show that more than 7,500 houses were damaged or destroyed, with widespread destruction of coastal infrastructure, including schools, electricity, communications and transport systems.
UN agencies in Thailand are strengthening their capacities to supplement Thai Government efforts in disaster response and rehabilitation operations over the coming six months. Priority areas for UN support include child protection, psycho social support, education, shelter, livelihood recovery, fisheries and agriculture rehabilitation, environmental rehabilitation and coordination.
This week’s mission to evaluate the impact of the tsunami on non-tourist sectors was a follow-up to a preliminary assessment of relief requirements made by the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team. UNDAC has established a base of operation in Phuket, and since last week has a liaison in Bangkok.
For more information, please contact:
Cherie Hart, cherie.hart@undp.org, 66 2 288 2133 or Punnipa Ruangtorsak, punnipa.ruangtorsak@undp.org, 662 288 2130.
Maitri's Report on Rehabilitation Work Undertaken
Taking people back to sea: The team based in Chennai has realised that the critical need for Tsunami victims is to rehabilitate them by consolidating their livelihoods systems. The priority therefore is to repair boats and engines, provide basic food support to some of the needy communities. MAITRI therefore calls this as the campaign of "Taking People Back to Sea".
Yesterday (as reported by Shirish Joshi) MAITRI finished repairing 18 engines and 25 boats in the village Vairakuppum. MAITRI volunteers will continue doing this work in two other villages in next couple of days, with the help of local mechanics who have long experience in this type of work. These boats are now ready to sail. One social worker having the experience of working after Latur Earthquake and is now a volunteer, is organising community meetings in Vairakuppum and Koraikuppum.
...
MAITRI's medical team is continuing its visits to three / four villages every day. These villages are mainly from Kanchipurum District.
Around 10th February, MAITRI will officially hand over the repaired boats to fisherworkers. Those volunteers who are inclined to visit them and talk to them around this time, should contact MAITRI immediately at jayuanil@vsnl.net
MAITRI's programme of a photo-exhibition and sharing of volunteers' experiences was organized in Pune on 26th January. It turned out to be very interactive and educating. One theme that emerged was the need to build the aspect of 'preparedness' within the MAITRI volunteers and develop further capacity of MAITRI volunteers to respond to any such emergency.
For any information on the above, you can also contact vmoorthy@rediffmail.com
Here is Dick Lewis’s story:
“The psychological stress is tremendous among survivors, especially among young married men who lost their families but saved themselves because they were able to outrun the wave. Many survivors I talked to said if they were to die tomorrow, they would be happy. Children have nightmares – a 9 year old girl who was rescued by her mother’s desperate lunge of one arm into the murky water while her other arm clung to a building’s roof recounted her nightmare of drowning and being unable to breathe. Her friends speak of dreams populated by shattered bodies and severed limbs.
On the other hand, they are remarkably resilient, rebuilding their lives as they can – and it seemed to me that a majority are starting to do so on their own without waiting for assistance from the UN or NGOs. Even so, I was particularly touched by a young widower who'd lost his wife and year old child -- he said our presence (speaking of the international relief community there) was like medicine to their souls, providing a spark of hope for their shattered lives.
As for tsunami, one fisherman told me of being a kilometer out to sea and facing a sixty- foot high wall of water. His boat struggled up the wall, going nearly vertical, and barely made it over the top. There was no back side: for fifty feet the water was level as a plateau. The wind generated by the wave’s face size and velocity threw mist high into the air. It was this block of water that did most of the damage—six more smaller waves followed.
On shore, the sea retreated for hundreds of meters; one fishermen estimated the vertical sea level drop at 15 meters. A small head high wave surged to shore before this bigger wave struck. Survivors on shore described this wave as a rearing cobra swiftly moving forward. Prior to this, rice fields erupted with geysers of steaming water, and in fact some victims were scalded to death even before the tsunami struck.”
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