Panic hits rescue

In the melee, hundreds of food packets and bundles of used clothes meant for children were dumped on the roadside as people forced relief workers to ferry them instead. 8216;8216;We were going in and they were running out,8217;8217; said S Ramesh, volunteer of Lions Club.

Hundreds of people also suddenly flooded relief centres set up for victims of Sunday8217;s disaster. Till late this evening, officials at the centres were trying to organise at least food and water for the extra two lakh people on their hands.

In Cuddalore, Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi said there was no way he was going to ask the 30,000 people evacuated from the coastal villages which came under the definition of 8216;8216;vulnerable8217;8217;, as per today8217;s warning, to go home. 8216;8216;I can8217;t do that until the Government asks me to,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;We are terribly short of food and I have appealed to the Government for urgent provisions. Our logistical base went out of gear.8217;8217;

According to state administration sources, apart from the 30,000 in Cuddalore, around 1 lakh people in Chennai, 50,000 in Nagapattinam and 20,000 in neighbouring Pondicherry and Karaikkal vacated their homes after alerts were sounded through public address systems and repeatedly played up by television channels, and are now crowded into relief camps.

8216;8216;We were distributing rice when I noticed several women rushing towards us. I thought they wanted the food packets but they simply ran past us,8217;8217; says K Rajendra, an official at the Nagapattinam District Collectorate.

By 1 pm, all relief agency coordinators, workers and volunteers had converged at the District Collector8217;s office, unsure of what to do next.

V Kartik, a relief manager at Nagore, said all material that was packed and sent in mini-trucks returned without being distributed. 8216;8216;We finally distributed them in the evening. Many of the vehicles had to dump the supplies because panic-stricken people got in, demanding to be taken to safety,8217;8217; says Kartik.

To many victims of Sunday8217;s tragedy, the warning came as a cruel joke. Many were still grieving over their dead ones, others beginning to pick up pieces of their life.

8216;8216;Our officials just did not know what to do with the food that they took to the affected villages, which were suddenly deserted, and when they returned to camps there were many more than they could cope with since even those from vulnerable but unaffected villages had added to the numbers needing to be fed,8217;8217; Bedi said.