'They kept falling'

Two thousand people were saved when they climbed an enormous, half-built flyover outside the town of Nagapattinam in southern India (pictured left). They clung on for hours until they were rescued as the waves reached up to ten metres high. Those who could climb, survived.

‘I ran to the flyover and climbed the scaffolding,’ said Selvamai, 34. ‘Hundreds of people were trying to climb up. Women could not climb in their saris, and kept falling.

‘Thousands of us climbed onto the bridge. Under it, we could see bodies and peoples possessions and roofs. We saw the third wave come.’

In Tim Hetherington’s photographs we see that, for those left behind, the moment of survival was also the moment of loss.

'I can only save one'
‘I was holding onto my two children, aged four and five,’ said Manorani Devaraja, 44. ‘I thought: I can only save one. I did not know which one to hold onto.’

Hewa Wellalage Latha lost her five-month-old baby from her arms. ‘Every time I see the sea,’ she said, ‘I think of her.’

‘In my mind is the memory of that moment and of the wave that was as high as the palm tree,’ recalled Seetha, 42.

She survived because she was able to climb onto the roof of a rich neighbour’s strongly built house. But she lost her sister, her home and her shop.

The tragedy is all the greater because many people need not have died. ‘If we had had a warning system,’ says Sheelu Frances, director of the Tamil Nadu Women’s Collective, ‘we would not have saved the houses. But we would have saved lives.’

Homes that will survive
In villages throughout the Indian Ocean, Christian Aid partners are now helping people to build stronger houses, set up emergency taskforces and establish local warning systems that will complement the hi-tech ocean sensors that governments plan to put in place.

‘We have asked for homes that will survive another tsunami or disaster,’ said Selvi, 36, from Chandrapadi, India. ‘We don’t want this to happen again.’