Children’s mental scars for life

E KISHORE, a three-year-old boy, whose sister was swallowed by the tsunami waves, refuses to wear clothes, often wakes up in the night and throws a fit.

His mother Selvi Eshwar said her ear still reverberates with the sound of the sea before it crashed into her house and took away her daughter, who ran outside on hearing the deafening roar.

“I am trying hard to forget what I saw after the wave died down,” said 26-year-old Eshwar, who now hates the ocean.

“The streets were all lined up with dead bodies. After seeing that I cannot sleep and become listless at times.

“I cannot concentrate and the picture of my daughter running out of the house still haunts me,” said Eshwar, who escaped the seas by clinging to a ceiling fan.

Her husband ran out and took shelter atop a neighbouring house with their son Kishore.

More than 6,000 died in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district alone. But the tsunami did not only kill - psychologists warn thousands more children could be scarred for life.

Veena Takkar, professor of psychology at New Delhi-based Gargi College, said it was difficult to gauge the deadly tsunami’s effect on the children who survived and impossible to say how soon they will recover.

“Children become very withdrawn, lose interest in playing, lose (their) appetite. Children cannot talk if they are very young, unlike adults who can talk about it,” she said.

“Some children could be scarred for life.”

Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences professor of psychiatry Nimesh Desai said symptoms of trauma among children include extreme withdrawal, aloofness, not eating or sleeping well and tantrums or fights.

“Ways of treating those with extreme trauma symptoms are giving emotional support, not letting them feel isolated or left alone.

“This should be preferably done through other children in routine play and social interaction and less through formal counselling,” he said.

There are no figures for the number of orphaned children in India.

Government officials are still compiling data from each of the 897 villages hit on the mainland.

Desai said if the children did not recover in six weeks they would need specialised care.

Like Eshwar, other parents who have lost their children are shattered. Ms K Allirami, 27, said the last she saw of her two daughters was when they were playing on the beach on December 26.

Housed in a temporary shelter at Nagapattinam, the worst-hit town on the coast, she complains of chest pain, nausea, loss of memory and sobs when people talk to her.

Ms Takkar said for adult survivors, the guilty feeling of not being able to save their children could lead to depression.

“If they see others also have undergone the same trauma, then it is a supportive factor,” she said.