Indian bishop says earthquake before tsunamis was 'God's alarm'

Published: 2005-01-25

PORT BLAIR, India (CNS) -- The powerful Indian Ocean earthquake that preceded the tsunamis was "God's alarm," said Bishop Aleixo das Neves Dias of Port Blair, which encompasses India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands. "God has mysterious ways of communicating with his people. I feel that the earthquake was God's alarm," Bishop Dias told Catholic News Service in a Jan. 22 interview. Most of the islanders who escaped the gigantic waves that flooded the flat islands "were alerted by the earthquake," the bishop said. "We were getting ready to go to church (Dec. 26) when the earthquake began," recounted Rajini Tirkey, a Catholic housewife from Campbell Bay, near the southernmost tip of the Andaman Islands. Speaking to CNS when she came to meet Bishop Dias, Tirkey said, "Soon there were craters all around, and water started flushing out like fountains." Sensing danger, the men watched the sea while the Catholic women and children prayed. "When they saw the huge waves coming, they shouted, and all of us ran to the jungle," recalled Tirkey.

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