South Asia's tsunami catastrophe has spawned an outpouring of assistance, analysis and anecdotes on campus.

At least one UC Davis employee was in the midst of it all.

Katherine Pinney, a lab staff research associate, was on vacation in Thailand for the past several weeks, according to Vito Polito, pomology professor and chair of plant sciences.

"She was on a snorkeling boat trip when the tsunami hit," said Polito, adding that he's had one contact from her family and apparently Pinney is due back to Davis in mid-January.

"She's safe and well," he said, "but had a quite harrowing experience, including a rescue by the Thai navy who got them to safe harbor near the Burma border."

A safe harbor is on the minds of many on campus looking to help. The Dec. 26 tidal waves killed more than 150,000 people and left more than a million homeless in South Asia.

The campus community is reaching out. For instance, Sri Lanka native C. Tissa Kappagoda, a UC Davis Medical Center cardiologist, is leading a relief effort on behalf of the school of medicine at the University of Rahuna in Galle, a town hit hard by the Tsunami where some 4,500 are known dead and 500 are still missing.

The school and nearby affiliated medical facilities are in complete disarray.

"Several major hospitals in the South and East coast of Sri Lanka have been severely damaged," said Kappagoda, adding that the main hospitals in the towns of Batticaloa and Mahamodera are no longer standing.

"This presents a serious problem because it was the main obstetrics center for the area," he noted about the Mahamodera hospital.

At the university, two medical student hostels have been washed away, and damage to properties is unknown. Kappagoda said that about five students and 10 faculty members are missing or are known to have died, and an unknown number of students have lost their parents and thus their means of support.

Kappagoda said the immediate problem is to get the students back on track with their studies.

"We need to make the residence halls habitable and provide basic necessities for the students who have lost their belongings," he said.

Kappagoda, who attended medical school in Sri Lanka, has a personal connection to the medical school at the University of Ruhuna. In the past, he has taught workshops there and, in addition, one of his former post-doctoral fellows at UC Davis, Sampath Gunawardene, is currently the head of the school's department of physiology.

Though his family is safe, Kappagoda, like many Sri Lankans, knows several people who have lost their lives.

Kappagoda said the medicine teachers' association of Rahuna are asking for funds for food, drugs and shelter. Intermediate needs include re-establishing the undergraduate education program. Long-term needs involve the rebuilding of houses and hostels.

In the last week, Barton Memorial Hospital, doctor's offices and residents in the Lake Tahoe area, responding to Kappagoda's plea, have donated thousands of dollars worth of supplies and cash to his relief effort.

"The fact that the world outside cares is an important source of strength," he said.

To make a contribution to the medical school, contact Kappagoda at (530) 754-8483 or ctkappagoda@ucdavis.edu

Back in Davis, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef appointed a UC Davis Tsunami Relief Task Force soon after the disaster struck. The group is discussing how the campus might best respond in both the short and long term. One hope is to partner with city and regional relief efforts and apply academic expertise where needed.

Helping hands

Other big-hearted ideas and initiatives are emerging.

Environmental design professor Victoria Rivers is preparing an exhibition titled, "Southeast Asian Baskets: Ethnobotany, Agriculture and Design." The show opens in the Design Museum in Walker Hall on Jan. 30 and runs through March 4.

"We are currently organizing a fund-raising event for tsunami victims," said Rivers. "Once we have a sense of the scope and level of involvement, we will proceed with developing the fund-raising event."

The worldwide response to the tsunami has reminded Emmy Werner, professor emerita of human development, of her childhood in Germany after World War II and how aid agencies made the difference.

"Without the milk that UNICEF distributed to us children in Europe," she said, "I would not be alive today."

She urges campus community members to consider a contribution to UNICEF, the United Nation's Children's Emergency Fund. Werner said she has worked in the past with UNICEF in Indonesia, India and Thailand.

"I know that this agency has the capacity to deliver some of the most effective relief efforts for the children who are the major victims of this natural disaster," she said. "UNICEF has experienced international and local support staff and supplies in place."

Contact information for donations to UNICEF and many other groups, as well as more information on campus relief efforts, can be found at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/tsunami.

A silver lining?

Ironically, the tsunami may offer hope for reconciliation between the Sri Lankan government and a parallel, separatist government run by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, said UC Davis South Asia historian James Heitzman. That separatist government, DLTTE, runs the eastern and southern areas of the Sri Lanka, where most of the devastation occurred.

"The resources of the state have been stretched to the limit due to a long, difficult civil war, and the Sri Lankan government will find it difficult to provide services to the area," he said.

Heitzman, who was in the country near the coast with his wife, UC Davis anthropologist Smriti Srinivas, during the disaster, points out that any foreign aid will be directed only to the legitimate Sri Lankan government. However, if the devastated population is to get help, Sri Lankan officials will have to find common ground with the Tamil rebels.

Srinivas said she was struck by the "complete randomness of life and death" that the killer wave brought. While no one in her immediate family perished, she knows of "friends of friends" who passed away.

On the day of the disaster, she and her husband had ventured into the seaside town of Colombo, only to find that the police and military had cordoned off the city. "I thought this was odd, because it was a significant tourist town."

After returning, Heitzman and Srinivas learned of the tragedy from TV and radio reports. It did not take long, she said, for people in all walks of life to pitch in and help out those in danger.

"The response of the public was incredible," she said. "Within hours, people and organizations were beginning their efforts. I was amazed at the vibrancy of civil society at this hour of great need."

Srinivas said the severity of the wave's impact might be due to environmental problems along the South Asian shorelines. In recent decades, she said, many mangrove areas and coral reefs have disappeared due to over-development and pollution.

"They used to offer some protection," she said.

The long view

History professor Sudipta Sen said religion and culture will play significant roles in the recovery efforts, especially in the handling of the dead among the Hindu populations. Under Hindu tradition, the dead must be cremated and buried properly, noted Sen.

"The need to dispose of the dead quickly -- for fear of disease -- sometimes before identification, is likely to make survivors feel even more helpless," said Sen, whose scholarship focuses on the British Empire, late medieval and modern India, and the history of criminal law.

As for coping with the horrific losses, Sen said many people will "try to accept their loss as part of their individual and collective karma, and no doubt reconcile themselves to the eternal cycle of birth-death-rebirth."

Sen recalled that the Hindu Puranas, a collection of ancient stories, tells the tale of a great flood during which the ancestor of humankind Manu was saved by an incarnation of Brahma, the Lord of Creation, or in later accounts, Vishnu, the Lord of Preservation. The Hindu god arrived in the form of a gigantic fish that towed Manu's boat to safety.

"Earthquakes in religious belief are said to be caused by the stirring of Vasuki, which is the snake on which the world still rests," said Sen.

Like Srinivas, Sen said humanity's footprint in that region may have exacerbated the destruction.

"Disasters are man-made and natural at the same time," said Sen. "The density of coastal settlements impact the magnitude of destruction, and one would imagine that the impact would have been relatively less in the past simply due to the lesser number of people close to the ocean."