Tsunami hits India

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12/29/04
Hello friends and family. We are now in Bangalore, many miles away from the affected areas. We have not witnessed any of the destruction or loss of life, and we are safe from any possible outbreak of waterborne diseases.

With the death toll passing 70,000 today I would like to encourage you once again to donate to the Red Cross. We are currently looking to see if we can help out in Chennai, but so far only people with related skills are needed.
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Without sounding too dramatic, we have survived the Tsunami. When it hit at about 9am we were in Tamil Nadu, the worst hit region in India. Over 3200 people have been reported dead and thousands displaced. We were staying about a half a kilometer from the ocean and somehow had no idea of what had happened until the afternoon when we were an hour inland.

The Tsunami hit hard in the state where we were staying, it hit in Kerela where we had been for the last few weeks, Sri Lanka, where we had talked about going and have met people who are there now, the Andaman Islands where a friend would have been traveling to by ship but at the last minute decided not to go, and the Thai islands where we will be in a few months.

With the death toll up to nearly 30,000 people, the least I can say is we are in total shock. We can’t get over the fact that over 3200 people died in the state we were in. But, it is also surreal to have not known what was going on as it was happening, it was almost like the small area we were in was spared from the destruction.

It has been very saddening watching the footage on TV. As we head back to Chennai we are going to look and see if there is anything we can do to help. If you would like to help, the Red Cross is the main NGO working to help people and is great need of funds. They have made an appeal target of $8.5 million dollars. If you would like to help support this effort, you can:

Donate by mail:
American Red Cross
Disaster Relief Fund
P.O. Box 37243
Washington, D.C. 20013


Donate online:
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

Or call:
1-800-HELP-NOW
(1-800-435-7669)

Be sure to mention the Disaster Relief Fund.