My husband was in Sri Lanka and this is his account of what happened to him, if any of you have not yet donated I suggest you read this it may encourage you to donate. i apologise for the length of the piece, but i did not want to leave anything out. If you want to give to his project please send me a msg and i will tell you how to.
I had gone to Sri Lanka to follow the Harrow School Cricket Team, of which my son, Edward, was a member. It was Boxing Day, and I was driving from my hotel in Bentota to watch the boys play Galle Schools at the famous test ground in Galle.
The night before, about half of the group had spent Christmas Day together at the hotel at which I was staying, the Taj Exotica. We had a great day, messing around on the beach and, in the evening, we had been to visit the nearby Turtle Project where they hatch and release turtles in order to try to save them from being eaten as eggs by the locals or being taken by other predators on their way out to sea. That evening we all had dinner together and rang home to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.
It was a beautiful morning and we had just gone through Ambalangoda, which is famous for the frightening masks that are used in dance rituals to drive out demons. The Sri Lankans are a superstitious people. In fact, that morning my driver, Lal, had noticed that a small lizard clinging to the outside of the driver’s window. He explained to me that many Sri Lankans believed that a lizard landing on your right shoulder was very bad luck, whereas a lizard landing on your left shoulder brought good luck. I suggested that car windows didn’t count, but we stopped to brush it off anyway.
About 5km south of Bentota, the houses thin out a bit and the coast road runs right along the edge of the sea, with a railway line on the other side. It was a beautiful calm sunny day, and I had noticed that the tide was well up and splashing against a breakwater of large boulders. This figured because I knew it was a full moon, as Lal had warned me that the day of the full moon was celebrated as a Buddhist holiday and I wouldn’t be able to get an alcoholic drink in a public place. It was obviously high tide, and a spring tide at that.
Suddenly the waves started to splash over the breakwater and water began to run in streams between the boulders and across the road. Lal stopped the car and was clearly frightened, saying again and again ‘Oh, Mr Peter, this is bad, very bad’.
Don’t worry Lal, I said, ‘Stay clam. I am sure we will be fine’. A Sri Lankan family in the car in front had pulled into the side and got out of their vehicle. The water then lifted our car bodily and we drifted towards the family and threatened to smash into them or their car.
Lal shouted ‘What to do? What to do?’ I asked if he could swim and he said no, so I told him that we would stay where we were. I reasoned that the car would float for long enough for us to the drift over to the railway line which was still about 2 feet above the rising water level. The car began to fill with water and we floated backwards into a tree which we hit with a bang. I packed up my ‘grip’ and asked Lal if there was anything we needed to rescue from the car and he passed me the documents from the glove compartment. Things were actually going pretty well, in that we had nearly covered the 20 or so yards to the railway line, which was on my side, and the water in the car was only about a foot deep. ‘Stay calm Lal, we are fine, when we get to the railway line, I will jump out and I will pull you out behind me’. It worked a treat and, if we hadn’t already got our legs wet, we would have been dry.
The road had been pretty busy with the usual traffic of cars, lorries, buses, tuk-tuks and bicycles. I looked up the railway line and I could see lots of people had made it onto the railway line but others were struggling in the water or holding onto trees, shrubs or buildings. I left my bag with Lal and told him to ring in on his mobile to let the Travel Company know what had happened to us. I then realised that, if a train came round the corner, we would all be in trouble because there was debris on the track which might easily derail it, and we wouldn’t have anywhere to go either, so I asked him to get someone to call the police and stop the train.
There was a couple, quite close to us, who were hanging onto a palm frond and screaming so I gave Lal my wallet to keep it dry and slipped into the water to help them back to the railway line. In fact, I was able to wade out most of the way and had them back on the line in minutes. I had passed a girl who was lying across the track with her head on the rail, and was obviously conscious, but my attention was caught by a family of three who were in the doorway of a house in a metre of water and screaming hysterically and pleading to me. It occurred to me that the girl, who was out of sight to them, might be their daughter, and through a combination of gestures and pigeon English I established that their lost daughter’s name was something like ‘Shamiya’.
I went back up the line and asked the girl if that was her name and she nodded weakly, so I took her hand, helped her to her feet and back up the line. She was about 15, the same age as my son, but quite frail. As her family caught sight of her, it was clear that this was their daughter, and I reunited her with her family to their delight. I checked on Lal, who was still talking nineteen to the dozen on his mobile, and letting his company know about the car for insurance purposes. I thought it might help the claim, if I had some photographic evidence and so I got out my camera and took some pictures of the car was now underwater except for the boot, and about 70 people that on the stretch of railway line that I could see.
I called one of the other fathers, on my mobile, to let him know what had happened. He told me that the game had been cancelled and that they were turning back. I assumed the cancellation was routine, and I explained that we had lost our car, we had managed to rescue some people and I was going to check whether there was anybody else who needed help, before walking back up the line to Ambalangoda; and I asked him if he could come and pick us up. I couldn’t see anyone else in distress, so I said to Lal, who was still talking into his mobile, ‘Come on, let’s get back to Ambalangoda’. As we walked up the line I said. ‘Well Lal, I don’t know whether it a lucky lizard or an unlucky lizard. We have lost our car which is bad, but we are fine’. He thought that it must have been a lucky lizard.
At that moment I saw large amounts of water coming again and, no longer calm, I screamed ‘Run!’ Lal was still engrossed in his mobile and I screamed ‘Forget the mobile – Run!’ But when I looked ahead I could see water cascading over the track as far as the eye could see. ‘Hang on’ I shouted and stopped to grip the rail in both hands. Lal was doing the same about 5 metres to my left. I watched the water swiftly rise up my arms, and let the bag go, with some regret, as it had all my valuables in it, but I wasn’t going to jeopardise my safety for the sake of a bag. I looked across at Lal, but he had gone, and then I went.
A wall of water picked me up and flung me backwards into the edge of the jungle. I was rolled about underwater like a rag doll. You read about kittens going round in washing machines and that is what it felt like. I then broke surface and saw the jungle moving past at 30-40 mph. It was dense with a lot of trees and other vegetation. I stupidly tried to grab a palm frond but I was going far too fast and couldn’t hold on.
Then I was sucked under and I swam desperately towards where I thought the surface was, but I was still being rolled around and buffed: I went through a tree or something that stripped my watch off my wrist. Holding my breath was now becoming a real issue and I let it out slowly to ease the longing to breathe, but then I saw light and did break the surface and took a gulp of air.
What I saw was frightening. I was still moving at about 30 miles an hour between some quite substantial coconut palms. From then on I kept my arms in front of my face if I was facing forward and behind my head when I was going backwards. I got sucked under again and I thought about something my first Headmaster at Hill House, Colonel Townend, had said. He wouldn’t let his new boys, aged 5, do any lessons - French, Latin, Mathematics or anything - until they had learnt to swim. ‘You’, he would say, ‘are your parent’s most prized possessions and, if you fall into a river, those subjects will not save you, so you will not do any lessons until you can swim’. We were then all taken off to Chelsea Town Hall Baths to learn to swim.
Once again I was at the absolute limit of holding my breath when, swimming as hard as I could, I finally got to the surface again. Things were now slowing up and I didn’t get sucked under again. In fact, I began to look for something to stop my progress and selected a coconut palm up ahead with a trunk which was about 12 inches across. I lined it up and managed to hold on, although I have some pretty substantial bruises to show for it now. I was absolutely shattered, and the respite enabled me to get my breath back.
Until now, the problem had been that I was moving and had to avoid the trees. Now I was stationary, I had to avoid the logs and debris, which were moving. I knew that if something big hit me at that speed it would break my arm and then I would be in trouble, but I managed to keep my hands out of the way of the floating debris. I was behind the tree and the current was still strong, like a large river in flood. Behind me, I could see an area free of trees, probably once a field, and I reasoned that if I let myself be carried further back, it would be calmer, it might be shallower and I might even be able to find a roof to climb on. I waited for a decent log to come past, grabbed it, and let myself be swept across the water to the jungle beyond.
Then I saw houses. They were to my left and I had to swim hard to get across to them before I was swept past, but I made it. I was extremely relieved to be able climb onto the breeze block wall of a house that was under construction. It was very rough and I was careful not to graze myself too badly because I didn’t want to store up problems for later, but soon I was lying on a ledge clear of the water watching 3 lizards on the wall by my head. I had swallowed a lot of very salty water and my throat was parched, which was a worry, and I was also worried about sunburn, but I thought it would only be a matter of time before a helicopter came to my rescue – little did I know.
I gradually got my strength back and then decided that I could do better than this house which was quite low and could easily be covered by another rush of water, so I look around for a bigger house and saw one with a red-tiled roof about 100 yards away and, rather reluctantly, slipped back into the water to swim over to it. By now the water had stopped moving and I used a stack of short planks as a buoyancy aid. I can’t actually remember whether I got to the house and climbed on it, because I heard voices. I was no longer alone.
I shouted and they shouted back and waved at me. I swam over to them and at last was able to stand, albeit with water up to my chin. A teenager took my arm and led along what I later discovered was the main street. It became shallower until we came to a small hill with two houses on it, which was completely dry and provided refuge for about 40 villagers. Nobody spoke English, as far as I could tell, but I managed to make it clear that I was desperate for a drink and one of the locals brought me a coconut.
It must have been about 1100, about an hour since the tsunami had struck, but we were cut off by the water and I wasn’t going to be able to get out of the village until the next day. I was very lucky to come across that village, which it turned out was 3 kms from the sea. If I had been any further away, I might not have seen it to my left and would have been swept past into the jungle where survival would have been difficult. In fact, I was the only survivor who turned up amongst those villagers. The 70 people who had been with me on the railway line were all lost including the girl and the family that I had reunited.
The village even had a well and an outside toilet on the French model with a drain and two ceramic tiles to show you where to put your feet. Communication was a problem for me because, with the exception of one young woman who had a reasonable vocabulary, nobody really spoke English. They wanted me to change and brought me a sarong and some flip flops and tried to clean my clothes, but I insisted on washing them myself, so they brought me the washing bucket and I rinsed my shirt and hung it on the line. I spent the rest of the day in a sarong, generally with at least one small child holding onto my hand or one of my fingers. They tried to offer me food but I felt so sick that I knew wouldn’t be able to keep it down.
They had a van and a tuk-tuk on the hill, both of which had radios and the locals listened intently. One of them explained that there had been an earthquake in Sumatra, and suddenly I realised what had happened. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it earlier, but I needed to work out what the next few hours were likely to hold. The locals heard on the radio that more waves were likely, but frankly there wasn’t much we could have done about it. There was nowhere nearby that was higher. One of the locals delighted in telling me that a 100 metre wave was due any moment and that he was ready to die, and asked whether I was. I confessed I wasn’t but ‘modestly’ suggested this was because my family would miss me.
I had no idea whether my son, Edward, who had being staying in a beach front hotel near Galle, and was due to play cricket at the Stadium, had survived and I was desperately worried. I was also conscious that, if he had survived, he would be worrying about me, as would my wife and family back in England, but there was no way I could contact anybody – all the phones were down. There was nothing to do but wait for the flood waters to recede.
By about 4pm the waters had gone down sufficiently for us to go and see what had happened to the rest of the village. The senior guy was called Anura Silva and he gave me a guided tour of the village. One of the first things we saw was the body of an old man in his 60s which was being carried on a makeshift litter by four villagers. He then showed me his house which, like all the houses in the village, had had all its contents flushed out and replaced by mud and debris. He had owned a fireworks factory in the village, which I later discovered was called Dimbul-Duwa, but there was nothing left except for a few strings of fireworks hanging in the trees.
There was great excitement when we found a fish which they reckoned weighed about 20 kgs. What was extraordinary was that it was a sea fish, a bit like a tuna, silver with yellow fins, and we were at least 2 kms from the sea. My friend was delighted with it and we decided that he should forget fireworks and open a seafood restaurant. I considered heading for Ambalangoda there and then, but it gets dark quickly in the tropics and I didn’t know where I was going.
The locals made a fish curry with the fish and I managed to eat a little. We then had a terrible night, with 30 of us sleeping on the floor of the house. I had my new friend snoring on one side and a teenage boy on the other side who kept flinging an arm or a leg over me, and the mosquitoes were bad. There were also regular panic about more waves and, on more than one occasion, we got everybody up to prepare an exodus, but we didn’t really have anywhere to go except to head inland, and we were probably better off where we were, on high ground.
I got up well before dawn, and my friend and two of his family then escorted me the 8 kms or so to the Police Station in Ambalangoda. Along the way, we saw many harrowing sights. The devastation close to the sea was total with no houses, not even the outside walls, left standing. These weren’t wooden shacks; they were made of brick and breeze block. The trek took a long time because of the rubble, the frequent distractions of bodies and the fact it appears that nobody in Sri Lanka ever walks past anybody without stopping to talk. By now I was desperate to know about the others and to let them know about me.
The Chief at the Police Station could not have been less helpful. He wasn’t interested in my driver, he simply wanted to know if I was intending to make a complaint and, when I made it clear that I wasn’t, he lost interest and asked me to leave. This was bureaucracy gone mad. They were all sitting in the Police Station with what they estimated to be 2,500 casualties in the local area, worrying about the complaints procedure.
Eventually we managed to find someone to give me a lift to Bentota, where I hoped to find my hotel intact. The bank manager from the People’s Bank in Ambalangoda finally stopped and offered me a lift. Most people didn’t stop and those that did generally hadn’t got enough fuel to go very far and the petrol stations had lost all their fuel in the flood. On the way we stopped at one of his businesses in a town north of Ambalangoda. The house, in a side street, was intact and, from the marks on the walls, it didn’t look as if the water had risen much above 5 foot, but apparently 26 people had died in that street.
I walked into the lobby of my hotel, which appeared untouched, and walked up to the girl at reception. I must have looked quite a sight because she looked horrified, but the staff was wonderful and established that Edward was fine and let people know that I was OK. They insisted on making me eat breakfast which I managed to keep down for about 10 minutes before using it to redecorate a flower bed, but I was safe and in the lap of luxury.
There were some demanding tourists in the hotel, who seemed oblivious of what was happening outside and complained about the fact that the service was slow or they couldn’t get a flight home when they wanted. They did not compare favourably with the staff, who couldn’t do enough for the guests, despite having lost their possessions and, in some cases, their relations. I was ashamed.
The villagers who had looked after me started with very little and have now lost what little they had. They are some of the gentlest, kindest people, that I have ever met and they desperately need, and deserve, our help. The aid operation which is under way will go some way to stemming the loss of life and restoring essential services, but we now need to think about reconstruction. My friend with the fireworks factory provided a living for all his extended family and valuable income for the village. Now that has gone and he does not have any money to buy the materials to start it up again. I will send them money to help them get back on their feet; but there are thousands of other villages that no one knows about, that also need our help.
31 Dec 04
