Canadian army gives water, health care to Pandiruppu

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2005, 04:48 GMT]
“We came here when we heard that people in the camps needed some medical assistance. We started setting up a medical facility here today. Our team can see about three hundred patients a day depending on the availability of Tamil interpreters”, Captain Scott Malcom of the Canadian army told TamilNet Sunday, explaining their mission in Tsunami devastated Pandiruppu, a densely populated town by the coast 38 kilometres south of Batticaloa. The Canadian military is supplying drinking water and health services to some villages devastated by the Tsunami on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka which are yet to see any tangible aid from Colombo.

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Soldiers from the Canadian army medical unit in Pandiruppu Sunday

Capt. Scott Malcom

Dead Palmyrah palms with tops bent by the Tsunami waves on the Kalmunai-Pandiruppu coast

Hundreds of families are moving into the outer precincts of the Draupathai Amman Temple in Pandiruppu as government schools are scheduled to start early next month.

International and local NGOs are providing them tents for making temporary homes in the only open space available in this congested village that is large enough to accommodate thousands whose houses were razed to the ground by the Tsunami last month.

The Canadian army has moved in to provide urgent medical and health services to the expanding refugee camp around the Draupathai Amman Temple.

Captain Scott Malcom said that each Canadian army medical team has a physician.

“We do not have a medical corps like the US army. We are medical technicians. Our unit is from a contingent of two hundred Canadian army personnel who are based in Hingurana”, Captain Scott said.

Hingurana is a Sinhala settlement in the former state run sugar plantation, about 30 kilometres southwest of Pandiruppu.

Speaking about the assistance rendered by the Canadian forces, Mr. K. Sinnathurai, a Tsunami refugee in Pandiruppu, told TamilNet: “The biggest hazard we face in such situations is community health. The Sri Lankan government’s public health service system has shown that it is not capable of handling emergencies like this. Sanitation and clean water are important in a large refugee camp like this. All kinds of fevers and cases of dysentery should be immediately identified and treated. Otherwise the place, not just the refugees, can be afflicted by deadly epidemics”.

The Canadian military has also established a water purification and supply unit for Pandiruppu.

Wells in the area are polluted by debris and salt water brought in by the Tsunami waves that devastated the area. Many wells are being cleaned. But the water is either brackish or retains a lingering stench of death.

It is not only the thousands of refugees who need fresh drinking water but even those who were not directly affected by the Tsunami are hard pressed for sources of clean water.

The force of the waves has ripped off several wells from the soil and rolled them over.

Reliable fresh water supplies can be found only on the mainland beyond the Kalmunai-Batticaloa lagoon. It is well nigh impossible to bring drinking water from this region given the distance and cost of transport.

Residents say that lagoon to the west of Pandiruppu is massively polluted with debris and human and animal bodies dumped there by the Tsunami.

But the Canadian army’s water purification plant is able to provide clean, safe and an adequate supply of drinking water to refugees in Pandiruppu from the lagoon itself.

The processed and purified water is stored in collapsible plastic tanks and is distributed free of charge to anyone.

The plant is located at the southern entrance of Pandiruppu on the main road from Kalmunai to Batticaloa.

“We moved here five days ago. There are eight of us here. Our job is to see that everyone in this place gets clean, safe water”, Master Corporal Bob Levesque who is in charge of the water treatment plant of the Canadian army in Pandiruppu told TamilNet.


Master Corporal Levesque

“The authorities are in a hurry to open the schools because the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) wants to show that it is being equitable. The fact of the matter is that in southern Sri Lanka many schools were reopened after the proper alternative arrangements were found for the people who had sought shelter in them. But here the situation is totally different. GOSL wants people to leave the schools but there is no place with sanitation, basic healthcare and clean water to shelter them here”, a local official told TamilNet on condition of anonymity.

He said Canadian military assistance is a boon in this situation although it is not a long term solution.

There are eight thousand eight hundred and eighty nine persons in Pandiruppu who lost their homes in the Tsunami and have sought refuge in temporary shelters here. Many were housed in Pandiruppu Maha Vithiyalayam and Pandiruppu Navalar Vithiyalayam, two main schools in the area.

Pandiruppu Vishnu Vithiyalayam, which was closer to the sea, was knocked down by the Tsunami.