Sri Lanka, after the tsunami
T K NALEEM stands on a concrete slab, all that is left of his former home. It’s only metres from the ocean, and is surrounded by make-do shacks. It’s the site where his family last saw their daughter and sister.
It’s the site where, on December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck in Galle in southern Sri Lanka. Naleem was in bed when it hit about 9.15am.
Naleem, his wife and four sons escaped death by fleeing to a nearby Buddhist temple. They never saw the one-month-old girl again.
Naleem spent eight days searching for her body, but she was never found.
That’s about all Naleem will say about his family’s experience that devastating morning which left an estimated 230,000 dead in south Asia, including around 35,000 Sri Lankans. Like many coastal Sri Lankans, tsunami left a despairing memory for Naleem’s family — one which is difficult to talk about.
Life is slowly returning to some form of normalcy — yesterday, Naleem says, he moved into his new house, which was built using Australian aid dollars. All around are signs telling of ‘tsunami reconctruction work’ courtesy of French aid, Australian aid, Austrian aid, and many other countries.
But all along the south-west and southern coastline are ‘monuments’ to the tragedy that was tsunami.
Lasantha, who is driving me to Yala National Park — one of the worst-hit areas — tells how bodies were still being recovered in Galle two weeks after the tsunami.
The road to Yala passes through Weligama, Mirissa, Matara, Tangalla, Ambalantota and Hambantota — exotic and beautiful by name and nature. The road hugs the coast for much of the journey; it’s tropical-island paradise scenery.
But all the way to Yala are the signs: Wrecked houses, heavy wooden boats — 10m or more in length — flipped on their sides, sections of concrete reinforced walls smashed to pieces and strewn about as if they were balsa wood.
It’s an eerie feeling as you ponder the power and the horror that was tsunami. At Yala, this feeling is overwhelming.
One of Sri Lanka’s best-known parks, Yala’s elephants, leopards, birdlife, crocodiles, snakes, water buffalo (complete with stalking jackals), deer and so on attract many tourists. On the beach — one of the most picturesque I’ve seen — is a monument to the 47 people who lost their lives at 9.20am on December 26, 2004.
It was a poya (full moon) day, a day of celebration for predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka; a day when government offices close and Many Sri Lankans head to places such as Yala. The majority of those 47 were Sri Lankans. They and the others, Japanese and German tourists, were doing just what I had come to do — marvel at the wildlife and scenic beauty — when they were swept away.
On the beachfront are two concrete slabs, all that remain of two bungalows. They were obliterated, and the two park employees in them were killed. Surrounding the bungalows are sections of concrete-reinforced brick walls, broken up and, again, tossed around like balsa. Hundreds of metres from the beach is what remains of a boat, left where tsunami deposited it as a grim reminder of the power of nature.
Later on, Lasantha shows me the site, near the park entrance, where a hotel was destroyed. He says that about 300 people lost their lives there.
I ask what effect tsunami had on the wildlife numbers.
“Nothing,” Lasantha tells me, explaining that all animals except the water buffalo left the park for higher ground. They could read the warning signs.
“Didn’t the tour guides suspect that something was wrong?” I ask.
Lasantha’s simple answer — no — was delivered with a quizzical expression which asked ‘how were they to know?’. Tsunami was not something experienced in living memory in Sri Lanka.
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I’VE left the beauty and horror of Yala behind and I’m heading from Hikkaduwa to Bentota.
My driver, Sarath, tells me his tsunami story:
He was married on December 25, 1987. Each year on December 25 and 26, he takes the days off and celebrates his anniversary with his wife.
On December 25, 2004, an Australian couple staying at a Hikkaduwa resort asked him to drive them to Yala on the following day.
Sarath says no, explaining his anniversary circumstances. He offers to take them on December 27.
“They argued with me for 45 minutes and the lady became quite angry,” he says.
Eventually they agreed. Sarath would drive them to Yala on December 27. It was a decision which most probably saved their lives, and that of Sarath.
The couple never got to Yala. They lost their belongings when the tsunami struck their resort, but they escaped with their lives.
Sarath saw them before they left Sri Lanka.
“Sarath,” they told him, “you are a god.”
