CHAPTER 2 The Global Resource and Ecological Crisis Natural and human created disasters In March 2000, my wife and I visited Kiada, a village on the coast of Orissa which had, on 27th October 1999, been hit by a 10m high tidal wave generated by a cyclone in the Indian Ocean. Approximately two thirds of the inhabitants and nearly all the animals in the village were killed. After the cyclone, we had raised funds to help the victims through a non-government organisation, New Hope Rural Leprosy Trust, whose staff were facilitating our visit. New Hope had helped with food and temporary shelters and provided tools for people to cope after the disaster. When the staff first encountered the victims they had been without food for nearly a week and many widows were left in total despair. They were desperately in need, not only for material help, but some form of activity that would help them build up some hope for the future. One very simple way in which this was achieved was by providing the women with seeds to establish their own ‘kitchen gardens’. The women were proud to show us the vegetables they had grown. The previous day we asked if there was anything we should take for the children of the village and it was suggested that we provided cricket equipment. I enjoyed playing cricket with the boys on the beach, but could not help thinking about what would happen the next time a tidal wave hit the coast. Another disaster did of course hit the coast, but this time further south and as a result of an undersea earthquake. A tsunami which first struck Indonesia on 26th Dec 2004, was to claim the lives of about 273,000 people in total along coasts around the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea and extending as far as Africa. We 20
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