Date:03/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/03/stories/2005010305270400.htm

Tamil Nadu

100 more bodies found in Nagapattinam

By Our Staff Reporter

Relief materials pouring in for tsunami victims. Godowns, kalyanamandapams, temples and other storehouses are overflowing with provisions. The `Puthiya Parvai' editor, M. Natarjan, spent a couple of days distributing utensils, rice and bedsheets to about 5000 families of fisherfolk

NAGAPATTINAM, JAN. 2. With the recovery of nearly a 100 highly decomposed bodies from the debris in the last 24 hours, the death toll in the tsunami tragedy in Nagapattinam coastal areas has crossed 6,200.

Debris is still being removed in Akkaraipettai, Kallar, Keechankuppam, Pudupattinam, Tharangampadi, Pazhayar, Nagore, Velankanni and Naluvedapathi, and other coastal villages.

The Army, police, and voluntary and sanitary workers are continuing to search for bodies under the debris. Army personnel are removing the mechanised boats that were swept on to roads in coastal villages and building approach roads.

M. Veera Shanmugha Moni, Collector, said 5,905 bodies (1,835 men, 2,360 women, 860 male children and 850 female children) had so far been recovered in coastal areas. The bodies were either buried or cremated immediately.

The Collector said the 11 committees headed by Ministers and chairmen of several Boards along with 10 senior IAS officers were in charge of relief work in the 77 villages affected by the tsunami.

Steps were being taken to route the relief material received from several parts of the State through the district administration. Police threatened to seize relief material from NGOs unless they routed it through the district administration.

Sanitary workers had been deployed to dispose of garbage and also old clothes, which were received as relief material but found discarded in several places in the district.

Mr. Moni said two sets of uniforms and textbooks would be provided to school students up to Standard XII in the coastal villages.