Horror Without Warning

By Monday, however, the temple was once again full of life as people poured in bearing clothing, water bottles and canned goods. Their efforts are part of a larger mobilization across the city as members of the South Asian community, which numbers over 200,000, joined other New Yorkers to help survivors in their home countries.
 > A full moon is usually a time of celebration in Buddhist temples, with crowds gathering to meditate and remember important events in Buddhist history. On Sunday, the day of the full moon this month, a series of tidal waves caused by an underwater earthquake devastated the coastlines of 11 South Asian countries and killed more than 50,000 people as of Tuesday. Over 19,000 of the victims were in Sri Lanka, where one wave hit a train, killing hundreds.
At the New York Buddhist Vihara temple in Queens Village only a trickle of people came to Sunday services. The rest of the mainly Sri Lankan attendees stayed home, trying to reach relatives by phone and email.
"Being a Buddhist, its no use crying the whole day," said Haemaal Bookoladeniya, a Sri Lankan graduate chemistry student at SUNY Stony Brook.
Bookoladeniya doesnt know if his parents survived the tsunami which devastated the coastal capital of Colombo where they live. He called repeatedly on Sunday and Monday, then decided to go to work. "If I cry all day, its no use to anyone."
He started by knocking on doors along his block of 76th Street in Jackson Heights, asking his Indian, Colombian, Ecuadorian and Afghani neighbors for donations to help the tsunami victims. On Tuesday he brought bags of clothing to the Vihara temple and joined several other volunteers, also from Sri Lanka, who were sorting donations into piles to be packed in a 40-foot long shipping container next week. If you would like to contribute to this shipment, please call (718) 468-4262.
Around the borough, other South Asians are dealing with the tragedy by seeking ways to help. Morshed Alam, president of the New American Democratic Organization, is trying to organize a group to go to Bangladesh, his home country, to join the relief effort there. The World Health Organization warned that disease, exacerbated by thousands of unburied rotting corpses could double the death toll in the coming weeks.
"We should mobilize people," said Alam. "After the water recedes, there will be more people."
sarah@queenscourier.com