People's Democracy

CPI(M) Doing Relief Work In Nagapatinam

NAGAPATINAM district in Tamil Nadu is the worst-affected in the tsunami disaster in mainland India. As per the district administration, till the afternoon of December 29, a total of 4,332 bodies were found. Of these, 1,600 were of children.

A team of CPI(M) leaders visited the Nagapatinam district on December 29.  They consist of Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member, N Varadarajan, Tamilnadu state secretary, G Ramakrishnan and K Balakrishnan, state secretariat members and four MLAs of the Party.  They visited Nagore, Velankanni, Nagapatinam town and other places. 

They met some of the affected  people in the camps and in the areas hit by the tidal wave. In a meeting held at the district committee office, attended by the district leaders and the secretaries of the two neighbouring districts, it was decided to organise relief work in 14 centres of the district. Four hundred volunteers would be deployed in these centres.  From December 30th, in two places, medical teams would be arranged with five doctors arriving from West Bengal.

Already a stream of supplies organised by the Party units from various parts of the state have begun reaching Nagapatinam.  They consist of  rice, clothing, medicines and other relief materials.  A group of  33 DYFI workers spent the whole morning in one area, Pappakoil, near Velankanni, collecting the bodies washed in from the sea.  In three teams, alongwith coast guard personnel, 60 bodies were collected and buried in half a day.