This coastal village of about 10,000 was largely spared in last month’s devastating tsunamis by a string of four tiny barrier islands two miles offshore that took the brunt of the waves. The killer waves obliterated four fishing villages and swept about 2,000 islanders inland, killing 37, with another 20 unaccounted for.Many of the surviving villagers were rescued by the people of Killay, who pulled them from canals, off debris and out of the mangrove swamp that lines the shore.Elsewhere along the 1,000-mile disaster front of the South Indian coastline, many tsunami victims have been relocated to tents in refugee centers. But in Killay, the people have made room for their stricken neighbors in their thatch-roof huts and small brick houses.‘‘We are all one people. We do not separate ourselves from the others,’’ said V.K. Sezhiyam, the panchayat chief. Killay itself is far from wealthy. Its villagers could use the goods being passed out from relief-agency trucks. Yet they let their needier neighbors receive the aid.More than two weeks after the unprecedented disaster, the dead in the region’s coastal communities have been buried or burned, and the Indian government has paid benefits to most of their families: 100,000 rupees for individuals killed, 4,000 rupees for displaced fishermen. Widely feared outbreaks of epidemic diseases have not occurred.While some people feel they have not been treated fairly and relief efforts sometimes seem uncoordinated, overall, patience seems to prevail.The people in Killay have worked out a system: Families from the barrier islands have been given tokens to identify themselves as tsunami victims. When a relief truck with food and supplies stopped in the village recently, women holding their tokens sat on the street and waited their turn.Rajakumari had lived in Chinna Vaykal, one of the barrier island fishing villages. She was happy there, caring for her three sons while her husband works in Singapore. Her two older sons were back in Killay; only her 3-year-old son was on the island with her when the tsunami struck.She was inside her house, she said, when she heard the ocean roar. “I came outside, I saw it, I grabbed my son,’’ she said. The wave ripped him from her grasp. ‘‘I couldn’t hold him,’’ she said, in a blank, even voice. She remembers very little about how she was rescued. Reunited with her older sons, she is certain she’ll never live in Chinna Vaykal again.‘‘When we went to rescue people, we found them floating on thatch roofs and clinging to the trees,’’ Sezhiyam said. Later, the men took their boats to search for bodies. They found 37 victims and buried them in a sandy clearing outside the village. On the island, scattered rubble from homes were lodged against palm tree trunks, vsible evidence that people had once lived there. Power poles lay beyond the beach, like concrete driftwood. All that remained of the dock were a few pilings poking pitifully from the sand.The villagers remember the words of French-born Mira Alfassa, who is revered in the region for her efforts to create a world where goodness reign: ‘‘You cannot deprive death of what it is due.” — NYT
