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Saturday, September 21, 2019

The Batticaloa cyclone - 1977


This incident occurred while I was a Surgeon on relief duty in Batticaloa, a town on the eastern coast of Sri-lanka. It was a normal working day in 1977. I had finished my evening casualty list at the General Hospital Batticaloa. After evening tea, I was reading on the bed in a room upstairs that I was sharing with a house officer. It started as a small drizzle. Winds started to pick up in speed. All of a sudden we heard a crashing sound from the roof and water started pouring into the room. I and the house officer thought it prudent to retreat downstairs to a room where the others had gathered. In a few minutes time the speed of the wind outside started to pickup. There was a terrific racket heard from outside. A piece of asbestos came crashing through a glass window and landed on the floor. We looked at each other and ducked under beds and tables inside the room. Missiles continued to be hurled inside at irregular intervals. Water was lashed inside the room in intermittent spurts and we got wet. All the time there was a steady roar of wind heard outside. This went on for nearly three hours. Then abruptly the sound stopped and the place became very calm. It became bitterly cold. We went to the wards a few yards away to see our patients.
            When I went to the ward I found that the patients had been brought down from the up-stair building, from where the roof had been blown off. The beds had been pushed together on which all the patients were seated or lying down. It was relatively calm but it was freezing cold. We saw that there were no seriously injured patients. The patients in the ward were getting good attention from the nursing staff. We got back to the quarters. Now the second phase of the cyclone hit us. It rose up in tremendous fury with a mighty roar where conversation was impossible. Broken pieces of asbestos roofing lying on the floor were picked up by the wind and crashed through window glass panes into the room where we sought shelter. We had to hide under the beds and tables in the room to escape the missiles. This went on for nearly two hours and then gradually the wind ceased. The air was bitingly cold. When we came out of the room we saw the degree of devastation. We lighted a fire on the veranda of the building using the driftwood, as the ground was soggy and our kitchen was damaged. We prepared tea over the fire. People from the surrounding broken homes, came attracted by this fire. We shared our tea with them. We got dressed and went to see the damage in our respective wards. Trees were uprooted and were lying at various angles. Almost all the buildings with asbestos sheet roofs had them torn away. Tiled roofs especially the semicircular old style tiles had withstood the damage tolerably.
            Looking at the Operating Theatre, the roof was missing. All our sterilized drums were soaked in water that was salty to the taste. The theatre table was intact but was covered in debris. There was neither water nor electricity. It was obvious that we would not be able to do any work there. I went to the new outpatient department two-storey building. I selected a ground floor room with a concrete roof cover and which had a washbasin. I decided that this was going to be our operating theatre. We washed and mopped the floor. A large barrel of water was filled and kept in the room. We rolled the operating table and a Boyle’s anesthetic machine into the room. We got oxygen cylinders, nitrous oxide cylinders. We salvaged the drums which earlier contained sterile material like gloves, towels and gowns. An obliging Anesthetist said we would manage without a sucker. By 8 am we were ready and started our first case, a badly crushed leg which needed a below knee amputation. The injured took some time coming because of the blocked roads but started coming in a trickle that swelled to a flood. We kept going till about 2 pm.
            The most pathetic story was of a patient who was expecting, and was about 32 weeks pregnant. Her husband had died in the collapsed house where she and another two-year-old child survived. The mother had injured her spine and was paraplegic. The two-year old daughter was clinging to her always, obviously very frightened. There were tears in the eyes of the people to whom she told her story.
            It was during this time I met a female attendant in her early thirties. She was very active and kept every one in good spirits and worked hard. I noticed this and took the time to inquire about her family as she was always in the ward. She told me her husband and two children were in Mannar. We were told that the cyclone was working its way across the Sri-Lanka landmass, in the direction of Mannar. I asked her whether she was not worried about the safety of her family after having experienced the destruction it caused in Batticaloa. She gave me an answer that shook me. She said, ‘Sir, I know in my heart, that if I do my duty to the best of my ability here, my husband and children will be safe’. She told this to me with the utmost conviction. I felt a spiritual pigmy in her presence.
            Two weeks later, after some hectic work, I flew back to Colombo by an Indian Air Force plane, which had come to distribute relief items to Batticaloa. The roads connecting Batticaloa to the outside world were still being cleared. Colombo was like another world. I got down at Katunayake and traveled by bus, to see my family in stationed in the Kandy Resident Surgeon's quarters. My wife and daughters were overjoyed to see me.
            Even after a period of three months I would start to weep during idle moments. Tears would fall uncontrollably, on the pillow I was lying on. I was reliving the emotions of seeing so much of sadness and tragedy of the people whom I had treated. Eventually this passed. A few months later I gave a lecture on the lessons learnt in the cyclone. I came to a point in the lecture where, I caught my breath and had to will myself to proceed with the lecture. I never realized, that as a trained Surgeon, seeing so much of injury in one's day to day work, that I would react emotionally in this way. Like all things, time healed this, but I am sure the psychological scar is still there, deep in my sub-conscious mind.

Dear Philip,
 Thanks for sharing your Batticaloa Cyclone experience with us. I was at the Southeast Asia Anesthesiologist Conference organized by our anesthetist colleagues 2 years ago when a video showing the devastation of tsunami and its effects on the hospitals left many in the audience crying. Again Batticaloa was badly affected. I have now fully recovered from the CABG. As an anesthetist, it was a great experience being on the other side of the surgeon's knife and full of fun! Thanks for your kind wishes at that time.
 Regards,
 Victor.

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