One of several abandoned vehicles hauled out of Batticaloa lagoon. Plans
to dispose debris like this truck are still under way.-Yeo Yi Xin
Where does the debris go
JOEY CHIANG
NAVALADY, SRI LANKA
Equipped with just a diving mask, fins and snorkel, Mr. S. Siva dives as deep as 20 metres for seven hours a day, searching for debris in a lagoon home to two crocodiles.
"I am frightened, but I have experience, and I don't go close to them", said Siva, referring to the crocodiles, which are more than 6 feet (1.8metres) long.
Siva, 21, one of 20 divers involved in USAID's Batticaloa Lagoon cleanup project, lives in Navalady - a village located on a sandbar between Batticaloa Lagoon and the Indian Ocean.
Debris is big business in Navalady, a village destroyed when the Dec 26 tsunami struck the east coast of Sri Lanka.
Its 1800 families had their possessions washed into the lagoon, littered across the coastline, or washed into the sea.
According to the Central Environment Authority's (CEA), there is an estimated 130 million kilograms of debris within the Batticaloa District - 1300kg of waste material for every metre of coastline.
Debris resting place
Divers are employed to clear debris at the bottom of the lagoon, which is hauled out of the water by a hydraulic machine and transported to a dumpsite recommended by the district's Municipal Council.
The dumpsite, Thirupperunthurai - about the size of three eight-metre-deep football fields, is where the debris is then burned or broken into smaller pieces.
Larger pieces of debris, like buses, vans, tuk-tuks and motorbikes are returned to their original owner.
"Most of the time, the owners refuse to take the badly damaged vehicles, and only remove the tires", said Mr. Y. Thushyanthan, 36, the dumpsite's supervisor.
"Most of the time, the vehicles are left around empty yards", he added.
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