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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