DR Joel Almeida, Trowbridge medical doctor and musician, spent two weeks in India following the tsunami disaster in Asia. This is the third part of his experiences.

Doctor S and I rode on his motor scooter into a large school yard with hundreds of people. The school belongs to a businessman who made his fortune in Saudi Arabia. He had thrown the premises open to survivors. The scooter was mobbed.

"The wave was higher than the first storey of the school," said K, a 50-year-old woman. "Had it come at night, when we were sleeping, nobody would have survived. I clung to a pole until the water went out. My husband died. Nearly all the young children died.

"Look at this girl," she said, thrusting forward a six-year-old. "I found her crouching near a tree when I went back that evening. She was lucky. The young ones slipped out of our arms. They could not hold on to anything."

"Have you got any pressing needs now?" Dr S asked.

"They feed us here and gave us clothes, but we need a little money to spend," she said. "Just a few rupees to buy a snack."

The crowd thrust V, a young woman, forward. Tears were rolling slowly down her face.

"She lost both her children," someone said. "Aged six and five."

"I had a family planning operation already," V blurted out. "Now I don't feel like eating."

"Is your husband alive?" I asked.

"Yes, there he is," she said, pointing to a middle-aged man nearby. "But I can't have any children," she sobbed. The others put their arms around her. I took her name and photo, in case I found a surgeon who could reverse the operation. (I eventually found a surgeon, but V had already moved on. We are still looking for her).

The men had gone out fishing, the 45-year-old man G explained. There were only a few swells at sea, no huge waves. When the men returned to shore they were shocked to find bodies strewn around a devastated, abandoned village. His wife had died.

"I will never step into the water again," vowed an onlooker.

"What else to do?" asked another man. "This is how we survive."

"They took my son to hospital and buried him without waiting for me," said A, a 40-year-old woman.

"My 14-year-old son D had a broken arm. We took him to a local clinic while our other son A (six) was taken to hospital. When A died they did not tell us, they just buried him."

She was outraged, but also worried. The government had announced a grant of a 100,000 rupees (£1,200) per dead person. But the burden of proof lay on the next-of-kin, and many now face a legal battle to claim benefits.

We moved to another cluster of people.

"People give us old clothes," one woman said. "We don't want them."

"Don't complain, be grateful," one of the relief camp supervisors said. "Did you even have a job?"

"Respect us!" the woman retorted. "We don't eat until our men return from fishing. They may be captured by the Sri Lanka guards, or shot, or drowned."

I enquired further. When fishermen from India or Sri Lanka cross unmarked international borders, they are sometimes captured and imprisoned by the other side. Their wives often do not know what has happened, since the owners of the large fishing launches don't tell them. Some women are even driven to prostitution and children would drop out of school to look for work.

Voluntary organisations, such as the South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS), work to get fishermen from both sides released. The SIFFS Tsunami Relief Fund will now receive royalties from our music CD Turn on the Dreams.

Children were running around in the playground as if nothing had happened. There were many single-parent families but surprisingly few orphans. Everyone was eager to claim them: the government was granting 500,000 rupees (£6,000) to each one. The government has had to register them all, to guard against kidnapping.

We rode to Tranquebar beach, home to the people we had met. A 17th century Danish fort dominated the beach. It seemed undamaged. The settlements near it were destroyed.

A woman, G, approached us. G, 35, had gone out looking for work on the morning of the tsunami. Her 10-year-old daughter was alone at home. Neighbours saw her being carried away by the sea, until a dog called Tiger and another called Karuppa (Blackie) got hold of her and dragged her to safety.

A pale-coloured dog ran up to us.

"Tiger!" said G, embracing the dog. "I can never thank him enough. Better than humans, these dogs!"

On the bus back to Nagapattinam town, I called my musical companions in Chennai, the state capital. They were busy buying supplies and distributing them to relief camps.

"Come and help us," they urged. "Besides, British guitarist John McLaughlin is due to visit."

With my role in disease surveillance seemingly at an end, I decided to leave for Chennai the next day. But the morning papers brought a surprise.