Thousands sought shelter in schools when the tsunami hit

It is a cyclone shelter, built 200m from the sea to withstand the storms that ravage the Bay of Bengal from time to time but do not usually reach India's south-eastern seaboard.

In recent years it has taken on a new role, doubling up as a nursery school in an area with a very young population.

Today, a few children in other parts of the village are getting back to their old games - chasing a rubber tyre with a stick, or playing cricket.

But around the shelter-cum-school is a sea of mud, littered with a tangled mass of scattered personal belongings.

Torn clothes. School exercise books. Sandals.

'Unable to save them'

A fisherman, 50-year-old Jaipal, recounted the terrible morning of Sunday 26 December.

"It was a holiday and young children were playing on the beach.

So many people died in this little village, that statistics seem almost random

"When the tsunami hit, they saw the seawater suddenly rising.

"They rushed to the cyclone shelter, thinking it would protect them.

"But the water gushed in and pushed all of them out.

"We adults were unable to save them. At least 100 children died."

The strength of the quake-driven sea was so massive that thick, fortress-like walls proved to be no protection for these infants.

Fishing communities face the slow task of rebuilding their livelihoods

Jaipal says that on the Sunday itself, hundreds of bodies were lying in the field.

Only 90 could be identified. He helped bury about 20 children in a mass grave on the spot; others were cremated.

So many people died in this little village near Nagapattinam, that statistics seem almost random.

What is certain is that a very large proportion were children.

Repeated tragedies

The main town of Nagapattinam itself is a devastated place.

At least 140,000 people, mostly from fishing families, are encamped in relief centres there.

Along with material aid, experts in trauma counselling are coming in.

Shockingly, another school in Nambiar Nagar saw a similar tragedy - some 160 older children died there and just along the coast another 150 children died in a school in Nagapattinam town.

Brother Peter, a local priest helping at a Nambiar Nagar camp, says he was involved in recovering 420 bodies on the Sunday, 238 of them children.

Jaipal was still finding more bodies on New Year's Day.

Today, the cyclone shelter building is locked.

Through the window just a few things are visible. Upended plastic chairs, and some tinsel Christmas decorations.