Friends: Mr Vijayakumar (in the following news story) was a former volunteer of the Nallavadu knowledge centre. Nalladu is one of a dozen infomation villages in Pondicherry where MSSRF has set up knowledge centres. There is a marked difference in the way coastal villages coped with the recent tsunami disaster - In Nagapattinam and Karaikal there was very little coordination and considerable chaos, whereas the four coastal knowledge centre villages presented a picture of orderliness. The villagers used the databases stored in the knowledge centre computers in organizing relief measures and for distributing aid and material received from government and other sources. In two villages, Nallavadu and Veerampattinam, the local people used the public address system not only to warn people about the disastrous vents but also to announce relief measures. Often people criticise these knowledge centres as donor-supported and unlikely to be sustainable. On the tragic 26th of December, the knowledge centres proved their great value. Especially, newspaper after newspaper criticised the government for not having an early warning system as some of the Pacific rim countries have. Arun ----- PHONE CALL SAVED SCORES OF INDIAN VILLAGERS FROM TSUNAMI By Chin Saik Yoon in Penang, Malaysia. December 2004 The tsunami that struck the coastal communities of several Asian countries on 26 December has been made even more tragic as news begin to break of how a small number of technicians, monitoring the progress of the waves across the seas using the latest ICT systems, had found themselves unable to warn communities standing in harms way. This was not the case with Vijayakumar Gunasekaran, a 27-year old son of a fisherman from Nallavadu village, Pondicherry on the eastern coast of India, who works in Singapore. He had access only to a radio and television on the morning of 26 December. Vijayakumar followed the news of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia as it unfolded over the radio and television in Singapore. As the seriousness of the disaster in Aceh sank in he began to worry about the safety of his family living along the Indian coastline facing Aceh. He decided to phone home. Muphazhaqi, his sister answered the phone. She told him that seawater was seeping into their home when he asked what was happening in Nallavadu. Vijayakumar realised at once that his worst fears were rapidly materialising. He asked his sister to quickly leave their home and to also tell other villagers to evacuate the village. I said to her: "Run out and shout the warning to others" he told the Digital Review of Asia Pacific over the telephone from his apartment in Singapore. Her warning reached a couple of quick-thinking villagers who broke down the doors of the community centre set up by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) where a public address system used routinely to announce sea conditions to the fishermen was housed. The warning from Vijayakumar, collaborated at this time by a second overseas telephone call from Gopu, another villager working abroad, was broadcasted across the village using the loud-speaker system. The village's siren was sounded immediately afterwards for the people to evacuate. No one was killed in this village as a result of the timely warnings. Nallavadu is home to 500 families and about 3,630 people. While all lives were saved, the tsunami destroyed 150 houses and 200 fishing boats in the village according to MSSRF. [This report was first published at http://www.digital-review.org on 1 January 2005] Friends: Mr Vijayakumar (in the following news story) was a former volunteer of the Nallavadu knowledge centre. Nalladu is one of a dozen infomation villages in Pondicherry where MSSRF has set up knowledge centres. There is a marked difference in the way coastal villages coped with the recent tsunami disaster - In Nagapattinam and Karaikal there was very little coordination and considerable chaos, whereas the four coastal knowledge centre villages presented a picture of orderliness. The villagers used the databases stored in the knowledge centre computers in organizing relief measures and for distributing aid and material received from government and other sources. In two villages, Nallavadu and Veerampattinam, the local people used the public address system not only to warn people about the disastrous vents but also to announce relief measures. Often people criticise these knowledge centres as donor-supported and unlikely to be sustainable. On the tragic 26th of December, the knowledge centres proved their great value. Especially, newspaper after newspaper criticised the government for not having an early warning system as some of the Pacific rim countries have. Arun ----- PHONE CALL SAVED SCORES OF INDIAN VILLAGERS FROM TSUNAMI By Chin Saik Yoon in Penang, Malaysia. December 2004 The tsunami that struck the coastal communities of several Asian countries on 26 December has been made even more tragic as news begin to break of how a small number of technicians, monitoring the progress of the waves across the seas using the latest ICT systems, had found themselves unable to warn communities standing in harms way. This was not the case with Vijayakumar Gunasekaran, a 27-year old son of a fisherman from Nallavadu village, Pondicherry on the eastern coast of India, who works in Singapore. He had access only to a radio and television on the morning of 26 December. Vijayakumar followed the news of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia as it unfolded over the radio and television in Singapore. As the seriousness of the disaster in Aceh sank in he began to worry about the safety of his family living along the Indian coastline facing Aceh. He decided to phone home. Muphazhaqi, his sister answered the phone. She told him that seawater was seeping into their home when he asked what was happening in Nallavadu. Vijayakumar realised at once that his worst fears were rapidly materialising. He asked his sister to quickly leave their home and to also tell other villagers to evacuate the village. I said to her: "Run out and shout the warning to others" he told the Digital Review of Asia Pacific over the telephone from his apartment in Singapore. Her warning reached a couple of quick-thinking villagers who broke down the doors of the community centre set up by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) where a public address system used routinely to announce sea conditions to the fishermen was housed. The warning from Vijayakumar, collaborated at this time by a second overseas telephone call from Gopu, another villager working abroad, was broadcasted across the village using the loud-speaker system. The village's siren was sounded immediately afterwards for the people to evacuate. No one was killed in this village as a result of the timely warnings. Nallavadu is home to 500 families and about 3,630 people. While all lives were saved, the tsunami destroyed 150 houses and 200 fishing boats in the village according to MSSRF. [This report was first published at http://www.digital-review.org on 1 January 2005]