My personal experience of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
26 December 2004. We were in a place called Velankanni . Velankanni is a small town on the eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, about 15 km south of the port of Nagapattinam. It is famous for The Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health , a shrine dedicated to Virgin Mary. Legend has it that Apparitions of the Virgin Mary appeared here twice to local people near a local pond. During one of these appearances the Mother cured a cripple. In a third appearance, The Apparition saved Portuguese sailors trapped in a storm. The Portuguese sailors then built a chapel there. That chapel has now grown into a church with three chapels. It is believed that the water of a pond in the church has healing properties. In 1962 Pope John XXIII elevated the Church to a Basilica due to these miraculous healing properties. The Shrine is also known today as “Lourdes of the East”. Our family was on a Christmas holiday. We had reached Chennai on the 23 rd and had driven down to Velankanni the next day in a Tata Su...