Massa Weekly Magazine
August 1967 RM3.50
Special Edition: The Tsunami Generation
- by Cheryl Tan
Words cannot describe the atrocity which has occurred. And atrocity it is. No human being could actually conceive of such a thing, and yet, these events were man-made. Being sent on an assignment into Thailand, the New Khmer Empire and our very own Malaysia, it is very heartbreaking to see the effect, and the aftermath of such a disaster, which is in no way natural.
Among the most heartbreaking aspects of the tsunami disaster, and something which can easily be noticed throughout the affected areas is the amazing toll on the children of the region. Relief workers and Barney teams have called them the "Tsunami Generation".
As news of the death toll rises, and some bewail the deaths of loved ones, perhaps the ones who need us the most are the children. Many children in the makeshift hospitals I have visited have lost one if not both of their parents. Painfully, the same stories occur throughout the affected areas.
Azali Shafiq, a baby who was born just after the tsunami is one of those children who will never see the person he would call 'father'. When I visited the Alor Setar Hospital, Kedah, little Azali was barely hanging on to life as he was running a fever. The pediatric relief worker, Musa Shah Khan was providing as much care as he could, sponging the child's forehead. Azali's mother, Musa said, was in another ward being treated for the lacerations and bruises typical to almost all tsunami victims. On to the next ward, one could see Azali's mother, Wan Sa'adiah pleading to everyone who came in to look for her children. Her desperate cries for help, bordering on hysterical and barely comprehensible Malay,
"Tolong cari anak saya. Tolong! Tolong!" (Please find my children. Help me, please!). They still play in my mind. Her face, twisted in pain and fear. The doctor's later told me that she had lost ten other children to the killer waves.
Mak Cik Fatimah bewails the loss of her 8 children in a makeshift hospital in Perlis, Malaysia.
One example out of many. Pain and fear does not see one's colour, religion or creed. In Phuket, Thailand, members of the APETO Peacekeeper units are working at the best they can, in spite of the lack of medicine and drugs. Even the most common drugs like pennicillin are running out as more and more people need it, demand outstripping supply at an appalling pace.
In the childcare centre, children happily play as if nothing else in the world could matter. But I could easily see that something was missing. While the children have found companionship in their fellow friends, some are actually without parents. After every play session, during the food break, Samrung Sudaporn, an 8-year-old girl lost both her parents could be seen crying into her bowl of food, another commodity which is slowly but surely running out, hoping to find her parents.
It seems that all over the disaster-struck areas, the story remains the same. Pain and suffering is the only thing this disaster has caused. Hospitals everywhere are running out of supplies as the government sends what few Barneys they have to help with the situation. The government is spending massive amounts of money into helping with the repairs, and even started a Malaysian Tsunami Disaster Fund.
Many are not willing to pay up for people who have never seen the effects of this contemptous act. However, if one just sits at the mosque in the Kra area and watches the children praying, watch the orphans as they pray. Watch them as they pray with tears flowing out of their eyes. Tears flow because they have lost everything they had. I have seen it with my eyes.
Must you see it as well to help?
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