Tsunami CDs sell at premium!

The videos simply reflect what the public wants to see, a sort of high-tech rubbernecking of one of the most deadly natural disasters of the past century.

Pushing aside pirated Bollywood movies, new releases are ruling the black market video charts: compilations of grisly pictures and videos of the tsunami horror. "There is great demand for them," said Mukesh Vyas, a compact disc dealer in Port Blair, capital of the hard-hit Andaman and Nicobar island chain. "We don't have the stock, they are so hard to get."

HT Image

Sometimes, the video CDs are simply news footage recorded from television broadcasts. But more often, it's highly graphic footage, often shot by amateurs, that would never make it to broadcast TV at all.

The videos have infuriated survivors and, in a few instances, put police into action.

"This is wrong," said Mildred Kujur, a tsunami survivor from Campbell Bay island, at the southern end of the Andaman archipelago. "They are filling their pockets at our expense. This sort of insensitivity really hurts us."

Police in the Thai resort town of Phuket arrested a man for selling video CDs of the disaster, where sidewalk vendors have been peddling video CDs of the tsunami for US$2.60. But for the salesman, the videos simply reflect what the public wants to see, a sort of high-tech rubbernecking of one of the most deadly natural disasters of the past century.

"It shows everything _ how people died, how they were buried, people who were saved and destroyed property. Good quality. Good sound," said Palaniappan, a 14-year-old boy selling CDs on the sidewalk outside Port Blair's main Roman Catholic church. Palaniappan uses only one name.

His prices match the demand. While most of Palaniappan's CDs, like a pirated version of the newly released Hindi movie Swades, sell for about 45 US cents, the 80-minute locally made compilation titled simply 'Tsunami-Affected Area' goes for more than triple that.

"This is about US$1.50 because this is about the tsunami," the boy said.

The video, divided into two parts, includes a droning Hindi-language voiceover. The first part is a slideshow of still photographs, such as giant waves engulfing people and dead bodies in various unidentified Asian locations. The video section has what is billed as the CD's exclusive highlight, amateur footage of the flooding minutes after the tsunami hit Port Blair. It can be difficult to watch. At one point, a man, apparently drowning, can be seen trying to cling to a bridge as waves wash over him. In another section, the bloated body of a child is levered into a grave by a group of policemen.

The videos worry Dr Thaveesilp Wisanuyothin, spokesman for the Thai Health Ministry's mental health department.

"These images could appear over and over again in people's minds leaving them with anxiety, sleepless nights or even full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder. Parents should be sure that children don't see such videos," Thaveesilp said in a telephone interview. Not all tsunami videos have hot sales.

In Jakarta's Chinatown, scores of video stalls have a video of footage culled from local and international TV news reports, much of which is poor quality and none particularly graphic. The disc includes a rambling message in Malay that scrolls down the screen, saying the disaster was a warning from Allah because people were ignoring His teachings.

One vendor, named Heri, said that in the five days he'd been selling it no one had bought a copy. "It's all about making money," said Heri, who goes by a single name. "I just wish more people would buy it. It's harmless."

In Port Blair, Palaniappan, who lost no family members in the disaster, admitted he cannot stand to look at the most graphic sections of the video he was selling.

"I tested the CD for its quality at home. But I couldn't see the bodies and the scenes of cremations," he said. "I walked out."