Faces of recovery in Sri Lanka: Gopalarajah's story
Eliyathamby Gopalarajah, a volunteer with the Sri Lanka Red Cross, makes a house call in Thirukkovil carrying well cleaning equipment. Gopalarajah and his colleague Irasathurai Vinayagamoorthy are part of a German Red Cross supported project that has been cleaning wells contaminated by the tsunami in the eastern Sri Lankan district of Ampara.
Photo: International Federation (p16839)
Gopalarajah climbs into the well and cleans the algae formation in the well as colleague Vinayagamoorthy assists from above. The well has been unused for over a year owing to silt and algae formation. The team has cleaned several hundred wells over the past three years, first with the Swedish Red Cross Emergency Response Unit and subsequently with the German Red Cross. They clean an average of six wells a day.
Photo: International Federation (p16840)
Gopalarajah has also helped clean wells in western and southern districts of Colombo and Kalutara. He was a paddy farmer prior to the tsunami and lost two houses in the tsunami. He now has a plot of land that he is renting and is receiving a new house funded and constructed by a non-governmental organisation.
Photo: International Federation (p16841)
Vinayagamoorthy checks the ph levels in the water from the well, an indicator he uses to check the suitability of water for drinking. Vinayagamoorthy’s house was damaged in the tsunami and he has managed to reconstruct part of it using his own money. Prior to the tsunami he worked as a labourer in paddy cultivation.
Disaster management
