The last 48 hours have been a nightmare for Shobhana Patel, a resident of a small village in Viramgam. Shobhana’s entire family lives in Andaman- Nicobar and she has not been able to get in touch with anyone since the killer tsumani struck the group of islands on Sunday morning.
Shobhana came to Gujarat from Andaman-Nicobar after her marriage 26 years ago. ‘‘My father, who is no more, shifted there more than 50 years ago and my three brothers and two sisters along with my mother live there. There are 16 people there and I have no idea what fate have they met. My youngest brother got married on December 6 and I have not even met my new bhabhi yet,’’ said a worried Shobhana.
All her efforts to trace down her family have been futile. While she and her husband, Bhopabhai, have made innumerable calls to the islands, their relatives in the city have got in touch with the State helpline.
‘‘We have tried every thing. Their mobile phones are switched off, we are unable to get through the residence numbers, which really worries us,’’ says Vijay Patel, Shobhana’s nephew.
Vijay says they approached the helpline but the officials there were unable to trace them down.
‘‘What worries me is the fact that all of them have houses on the seashore. For the first time after my marriage, I had visited them this summer. That they all lived by the sea is what worries me the most,’’ Shobhana says.
The helpline has received five frantic calls from people across the State who are trying to get in touch with their near and dear ones. One of the calls was from one Gopal Desai from Vadodara. The helpline officials acted on this call and managed to trace down six members of a team in Kerala.
There were two calls from Ahmedabad and one each from Surat and Valsad, but officials have not been able to help in these cases. They plead helplessness, saying that none of the callers were able to provide full information about their kin.
‘‘There is little we can do for most of these callers state that their loved ones are in a tour at one of the tsunami-hit places, but have no details about where they can be located. All we can do is keep sending faxes to helplines and authorities there but even they must be flooded with similar complaints,’’ says an official.