[KCDXC] Delhi Woman [from Andaman Amateur Radio DXpedition] is Andaman's 'Angel of the Seas'

[Mike ZooLoo]

A Delhi woman in the Andaman islands has become the
centre of a 
multi-nation effort by ham operators to unite
thousands of families 
separated by the killer waves.

The Andamans account for about a third of India's
reported death toll of 
11,330 but thousands more are missing or have been
separated from families 
in the archipelago's 572 islands because of massive
damage to harbours, 
bridges and local ferry services.

A grateful Indian army is supporting 46-year-old
Bharti Prasad with gear 
and batteries as the Delhi-based housewife has
networked ham operators 
across the nations to reunite families and help in
relief and rescue 
operations.

Ham radio buffs had not been permitted to operate in
the Andamans since 
1987 but the ban was lifted in November. Prasad was
among the first to 
arrive to help establish a radio footrprint in the
string of islands near 
Thailand.

"We arrived here on December 15 to support Andamans as
a radio country ... 
Amatuer stations across the world wanted a footprint
in these beautiful 
islands," Prasad told AFP in the capital of Port
Blair.

"I did not expect a disaster like this. It is no
longer a game and now we 
must help," Prasad said as her headset crackled with
tsunami-related 
traffic from a high-frequency radio band spanning
three megahertz to 30 
megahertz.

"When the tidal waves struck, we just turned the
beacon towards India and 
since then, we have been flooded with messages which
we relay on local 
telephone lines," she said.

"Hams have also advertised in newspapers asking people
to get in touch with 
us, and in that way, we are uniting families broken up
by Sunday's waves," 
added Prasad. She has already handled around 30,000
emergency calls since 
disaster struck the tropical paradise.

"The only thing I am now afraid of is our telephone
bill," said Prasad.

Mothers were separated from their children and
husbands from their wives in 
the desperate scramble to escape the killer waves.
Further chaos ensued 
when rescuers randomly plucked survivors from islands
and sent them to 
special shelters.

"I thought I had lost my family but soon an official
told me that he had 
received messages from a 'radio station' that all my
relatives were safe in 
Port Blair," said survivor Roby Dey in the devastated
island of Car Nicobar.

The "radio station" was none other than Prasad, a
military rescuer said in 
Car Nicobar. Amateur stations in Kolkata, Bangalore,
Hyderabad and Chennai 
are now linked with Prasad and the network is growing
beyond Indian 
territory, said Suresh Babu, one of her five
co-volunteers.

"Bharti, we are now on airnet. You take care. You are
the Angel of the 
Seas. Without you out there, rescue will halt," a
voice from Indonesia 
crackled in her hotel room, badly-damaged by Sunday's
devastation.

Prasad and the other five ham operators now work
round-the-clock from the 
hotel room where erratic power and water supplies have
added to their 
difficulties.

"We are also helping the administration to streamline
relief in Andamans as 
well as serving as a broadband listening post for
stray SOS signals," said 
Prasad, a prominent member of the National Institute
of Amateur Radio.


  Source -
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13640455



		
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