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Rain dampens Lankan tsunami relief effort

AMPARA: Heavy rain again lashed parts of eastern Sri Lanka on Tuesday, flooding camps housing hundreds of thousands of people made homeless by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Just as an international aid bandwagon seemed to be creaking into top gear nine days after the deadly waves killed over 30,000 people in Sri Lanka, the skies opened, pouring further misery on the displaced.

At the R.M.K Boys School housing about 1,500 people from the villages of Karaitivu, women and children huddled with their few belongings in the assembly hall, marooned by ankle deep water on all sides.

“Look at all this water,” said Savaguru Puvaneswaran, 28. “The children are getting sick. There is a problem with the toilets, with all this water, with disease ...”

Planeloads of international aid continued to pour into the country, however, and relief workers said the problem now was making sure it got to where it was needed.

“We have what we need at the rear,” said John Carlton of ActionFast. “What we need now is to get to the frontlines.”

Dozens of nations have sent relief teams to Sri lanka to build and operate field hospitals, fix sanitation facilities, clean-up water supplies and help repair an infrastructure smashed to pieces by the Dec 26. tsunami.

But most of what they do will be only a quick-fix.

The country is likely to feel the effects of the Tsunami for years to come - if not a generation - after Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse told parliament on Tuesday that nearly half the 30,000 Sri Lankans who died were children. The United Nations children’s organisation UNICEF said more than 300 children had been orphaned. reuters

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