Tsunami Reports

Tsunami animal relief report February 16th, 2005 - Hail the doggies!

Here are two local stories from nearby to Visakhapatnam ...

Ramayapatnam village with mamalnourished cows and progenies. Needed immediate good food and medical treatment. Scenes like these are deplorable and the animals are further vulnerable being tied up by their owners. They were provided special and extra feed for many days and vaccinations.

The boy Ramu is 12 years old and he studies in the seventh standard at Bhimli. He stays in Uppada village about 8 kms from Bhimli and his village is covered by our sea turtle protection campaign. He supports around six dogs near his hut and his village has more than 20 dogs. He saves his dogs by paying off some RS. 20 per dog to the dog catchers

He reports that on the 26th December since 4 AM the dogs nearest to him were barking in a long monotonous manner facing the beach. From his village one cannot see the seawater because of the high sand dunes. Along with these dogs the entire troup of 20 dogs were barking. And they did so until 7 AM (just before the tsunami hit). His father was angry at this abnormal barking and asked Ramu to stop the barkings but failed. So he was complaining about these barkings which never they witnessed before and he raised this question at the meeting. The dogs knew and made the villagers wake up. Generally the fisheremen go for fishing by 3 AM but in this village the fishing occupation is now limited to very few people because of the tsunami damage while the remaining work for labours and other menial jobs.

In our continuing surveys and interactions along the coast (as this is the seaturtle season and we are continuing our sea turtle protection) we come across many reactions from the people. Here is our Pratap Singh, in charge of VSPCA wildlife committee. He lives in Visakha city close to the coast. He reports that on the morning of the tsunami all the dogs in his area (all of them fixed) were also barking since 5 AM looking towards the sea. It was not ordinary barks but related to some kind of great frightenings.