STOP PRESS…. STOP PRESS…Today (Monday 14 June) the sea had calmed and men from the Village wanted to go out fishing as they hadn’t been able to since the monsoon started. 4 hours later we received a text saying that the fishing boat had gone down and that the engine and generator are lost but thankfully, NO lives have been lost.
In recent blog posts we reported on the terrible impact the monsoon had already had on the Village School and the Girls’ Orphanage.
After a brief lull, things seem to have worsened and as such, the trustees of FODAD have agreed to make an emergency donation to cover the cost of repairs to the school roof which covers the “library” where the computers and musical instruments are stored and to cover any other immediate assistance.
Over the weekend, there was a Tsunami warning for Sri Lanka following an earthquake in the Indian Ocean which measured 7.5 on the Richter scale. Ranmal described having to wake his family and move them all at 0100 on Sunday morning in appalling weather conditions because of the Tsunami alert. It beggars belief just how frightened and vulnerable the families and children in the fishing village are feeling.
A former colleague of Della has also just returned to the UK and confirms that much of the Fishing Village has been destroyed and the beach has all but disappeared. As well as damage to the school, the fishermen have been unable to fish for 4 weeks and Udaya has lost most of the roof to his house.
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