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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tsunami survivor’s struggle

The Spokesman-Review

VAILANKANNI, India — Six members of Melvin Antony’s family were washed away when killer waves struck this town, though only one body was found. After weeks of hoping against hope, Anthony has come to accept that all are dead. But he has yet to convince India’s bureaucrats.

Antony, a 33-year-old engineer who lives 220 miles away in Madras, has made the all-day trip to this tiny coastal town in southern India three times since the Dec. 26 tsunami. Next week he will come again, hoping to collect the death certificates of his mother, nephew, niece and two sisters. Only the body of his nephew was found. A brother-in-law survived.

“The others are all dead. If they were alive, we would have known,” Antony said, his voice choking. The five are among 5,640 missing in India, in addition to nearly 11,000 confirmed dead.

Even in normal times, categorizing a missing person as dead is a meticulous, often time-consuming process in this country. For relatives of tsunami victims, the absence of remains has made the process even more of an ordeal, adding to their suffering. Like Anthony, hundreds of people have made long — often futile — trips to government offices and police stations to get missing relatives declared dead.

And yet it’s important in a disaster of this scale for relatives to have an official declaration of death as soon as possible. Not only are death certificates are required for claiming insurance and transferring property or bank accounts, they can also provide emotional closure for relatives in a disaster where so many of the dead simply vanished.

Some were swept out to sea; others were buried unbeknownst to their kin in the rush to remove a potential source of disease. Often their remains were not photographed for later identification or were so disfigured they could not be recognized.

More than 900 people were reported missing in Vailankanni, home to an 18th century church much visited during the Christmas season. At least 614 people were confirmed dead.