Tsunami disaster

Updated January 21, 2005

The tsunami disaster in Asia has also hit home at McGill. Information about how students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as their families, have been affected is still being gathered, but already stories of human loss and suffering among members of the McGill community have been confirmed.

Among them is Nazli Hanum Lubis, an alumna in Indonesia who graduated from the University through the McGill Indonesia Project, as well as most of her family. Mathieu Lafond, a graduate who was travelling in Thailand, and June Kander, a former lecturer at McGill who was vacationing in Sri Lanka, also perished in the tragedy.

A short ceremony was held on January 5 at Redpath Hall to acknowledge and reflect on the tragic loss of human life and the unfathomable suffering caused by the tsunami.

"The massive scale of this recent injury demands that we do not ignore, or try to deny it. It demands that each of us stop what we've been doing, recognize the wound, and activate new resources — financial resources, resources of human effort, and resources of the spirit — to together contend with this injury," Principal Heather Munroe-Blum said.

McGill's chaplain, Gwenda Wells, the president of the Students' Society, Andrew Bryan, as well as Noah Billick, president of the Post-Graduate Students' Society, also spoke to the more than 250 students, faculty and staff gathered.

At 12:30, a minute of silence was observed across the University's campuses in memory of the thousands of victims. After the ceremony, teas from the affected countries were served.

McGill has deep ties in Asia and eastern Africa with many alumni and families of students. McGill currently has close to 400 students from the countries most affected by the tsunami, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Kenya.

Notes

A funeral service for Mathieu Lafond will be held at the Notre-Dame-des-Champs Church (187 d'Iberville Blvd., Repentigny) on Saturday, January 22, at 11 am. The family will receive friends at 10:30 am.

A memorial service for June Kander will be held at Wray, Walton Wray Funeral Home (5610 Sherbrooke West, Montreal) on Saturday, January 22, at 2 pm. The family will receive friends and relatives from 3 to 5 pm, following the service.