A minute of fear, a life of struggle

Tsunami orphans (from left) Manikandan, David, Jagan, Lakshmiyan and Mahendran at an orphanage near Nagapattinam. Picture / Reuters

Revathi is alone in the world.

Ten days ago she had a happy family home and loving parents.

That is all gone now, wiped away in a few minutes of terror.

Both her parents were killed. The family home, with all its memories of her short life, was wiped from the face of the earth.

Now the best she can hope for is a place in one of India's thousands of orphanages, a desperate struggle to scrape by, an existence utterly depending on the charity of others, a life shattered.

Nagapattinam is a town of orphans.

It seems that every child you meet lost at least one parent on the day they call Black Sunday.

Revathi is a pretty little girl with ribbons in her hair.

She emerged from among the ruined alleyways of Thuney Thurai district, where wooden fishing boats lie on top of the rubble of the houses and the smell of dead bodies makes it hard to breathe.

"I was playing at home with my brother when the wave came," she says.

"Mum and dad were at the beach waiting for the boats to come in. They used to help bring in the fish.

"Then the neighbour came in. She said, 'There's a flood coming,' and grabbed my brother and me and took us out of the house.

"We climbed on the roof of a house, where we were safe."

Down on the beach, her mother and father had been killed almost instantly, but Revathi did not know that.

"The neighbour told me after two or three days," she says.

"She told me my parents were dead and had been buried, and that I could not see them."

Revathi tells me her parents' names as if they are something precious to her. Her father was Segar. He was 32. Her mother was Antamma. She was 28.

She avoids eye contact and often seems on the verge of tears. But she does not cry.

Since the disaster, she and her 13-year-old brother, Selvara, have been staying with her aunt.

But her aunt's family is poor.

"We cannot afford to take them in permanently," says the aunt. "It's two more mouths to feed."

Long after the media coverage has ended, and the vast aid donations flowing in have dried up, the orphans will still be here.

Her aunt has brought her to meet John Arul, a Christian pastor. The charity he works for, Love and Care India, runs an orphanage and he hands Revathi a brightly coloured brochure.

She turns it over and over in her fingers, glancing from time to time at the picture of smiling children.

"I can't take her today, she will need time to adjust emotionally to what has happened," says Arul.

He says his group has found "15 orphans this morning alone".

"We have only been working in Thuney Thurai so far and we have found more than 100.

"When you consider the total area affected here, that must mean thousands of orphans in Nagapattinam district."

More than 6000 people have been confirmed dead in Nagapattinam, and thousands are missing. T

In the Nahore area of Nagapattinam town, the secondary school is full of orphans.

Of the 5000 or so survivors housed there, 3000 are children, and 40 of those have lost both parents.

They are dotted around the town in camps, or with neighbours or relatives. Their futures will be the real test of whether the world takes care of the victims of this catastrophe.

They are the orphans of the tsunami.

- INDEPENDENT