CHENNAI: For 50-year-old Pushpa, the shocking image of the 2004 tsunami wiping out their little coastal village, Karikattu Kuppam, off East Coast Road in Muttukadu, is still fresh in her mind. Added to that fear were stories of apparitions floating around, which made Pushpa and her fellow villagers abandon their 150-year-old settlement.
The village lost four members, including two children and a 70-year-old man, to the tsunami. Months after the tragedy, several stories began doing the rounds — some of the wails of children coming from the abandoned lands and others of shadows of an old man walking through the deserted hamlet.
None in the village, however, could recollect as to who started the stories.
Haunted by the fear of the unknown, the 265 families who had lived in the six-acre land for 150 years deserted it. “We vacated the village and lived in tents for four years until the government gave us permanent houses in nearby ‘Manja Board’ village that is at least a kilometre away from the sea. We have heard many stories about ghosts in the village after we left but we have not been there since the tsunami,” Pushpa said.
While some believe the ghosts are from the nearby graveyard, others insist they are the spirits of those who died during the tsunami.