Man faces theft charge after tsunami donations taken

A security guard has allegedly stolen donations for tsunami victims from a locked cupboard at Tauranga Hospital.
The allegation came as details emerged of another narrow escape from the waves by a Bay family.
A 35-year-old Greerton man was arrested yesterday after hospital staff phoned police. He is to appear in Tauranga District Court on Wednesday on one charge of theft.
Sergeant Dave Thompson said donations collected by the hospital had been in envelopes in a locked cupboard.
It is alleged $48 was taken but there was more cash being held in the office.
Meanwhile, police yesterday charged a woman with stealing a donations jar from a butcher's shop in Orewa. The woman appeared in Kaitaia District Court and was granted name suppression. She was remanded to reappear in court at a later date.
That incident was followed by the theft of a donation box from a butcher's shop in Christchurch, where someone made off with a tsunami disaster donation box containing at least $200.
Mad Butcher chain owner Peter Leitch said the money would be made up by the company.
He said the response to the public appeal had been fantastic.
Meanwhile, two Tauranga-based Sri Lankan doctors who barely escaped the Boxing Day tsunami said nothing could have prepared them for the aftermath.
Dr Anura Andarawewa and his wife, Savitri, were on holiday in their homeland when the tsunami struck - and they are still amazed that they survived.
The wave hit while the Andarawewas were having breakfast at a hotel in Trincomalee - one of Sri Lanka's biggest natural harbours - with their three-year-old son Sashin and about nine other family members.
"We started running inland with the children. People were screaming. It was scary. We ran for about five minutes before the wave subsided," Dr Anura Andarawewa said.
"The hotel dining room we'd left was torn apart by the rushing waters."
All 12 family members survived.
Afterwards, they immediately went to work caring for the dead and injured, working in a cramped, makeshift clinic in the southern city of Matara.
Dr Anura Andarawewa, who is a GP at Brookfield Medical Centre, said from Colombo that his medical training had been little help in coping with the scale of the disaster.
"As doctors we are used to dealing with death - but not like this," he said.
"After they drown, the bodies get swollen in the water. Their features distort so that they are beyond identification."
The arrival of much-needed international aid over the past four days had made a huge difference to the relief effort.
"I'm really proud of the efforts made to send aid, throughout New Zealand. It's fantastic that people have been so generous," he said.
Rainwater and the arrival of medical supplies were helping to keep the spectre of disease at bay in the worst-hit areas, he said.
The two doctors are due back in the Bay this weekend.
The mainly Buddhist nation has turned to prayer to give thanks for those who survived and to farewell the dead, he said.