Word: thirukkovil
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When the tsunami hit the eastern Sri Lankan town of Thirukkovil, just before 9 a.m. on Dec. 26 last year, Father Ranjeevan Xavier cut short morning Mass at St. Joseph's, told his congregation to head for higher ground, tucked his cassock into his sash and ran toward the sea a few hundred meters away. "Almost immediately I found the body of a woman lying on a fence," says Father Ranjeevan, 30. "Her long hair had tangled in the barbed wire and trapped her. We'd had floods before, but I'd never seen that. I picked up her body...
...surrounding district of Ampara was the worst hit in Sri Lanka. Of 38,000 dead, 10,000 were from Ampara, including a tenth of Thirukkovil's population of 6,000. Father Ranjeevan says he eventually buried 750 people--most in two mass graves on the beach--as bodies from elsewhere washed up on the tide. He ministered to the dead for a week, then started on recovery. He coordinated aid groups, distributed self-written pamphlets on the science of tsunamis, set up patrols to stop looters and opened a nursery, a students' dormitory, a nutrition center and a teacher-training...
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