{"id":36623,"date":"2014-12-25T18:37:29","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T23:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36623"},"modified":"2014-12-25T20:13:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T01:13:26","slug":"an-expatriate-couple-living-in-the-south-recall-the-tsunami-experience-of-december-26-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36623","title":{"rendered":"An Expatriate Couple Living in the South Recall the Tsunami Experience of December 26, 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

Hazel and Graham Gallagher
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are expats living in Sri Lanka, we have lived here since 2002 and teach English language to a diverse selection of local people from Government workers to village children. We live in a village called Mihiripenne on the south coast.<\/p>\n

\"TSUNAMI10\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At 9:26 on Sunday the 26th December the village erupted into a chattering mob, \u201cThe seas coming across the road\u201d, everybody hurried to see this phenomena, which had never been seen before even by the elders of the village. We ran the hundred meters to the road, the sea had indeed come to the road which was littered with flotsam, wet and bedraggled. The sea, which should have been a few feet away had disappeared into the far distance leaving small rock pools containing fish which the young boys were trying to catch. The few feet of grass above the beach was littered with shoes, small bags and other items. <\/p>\n

Although we had never witnessed a tsunami alarm bells started to ring, we told the men to get the boys and run for the Temple inland which stands on higher ground. The next wave was forming as a young friend received a call from his parents in Unawatuna, they lived a hundred meters from the old Dutch canal, the waves had pushed the water back up the canal into the houses to a depth of three to four feet, the residents had run to the hill known as Bona Vista and were safe.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We scuttled home and jumped in the car, as we drove from our small road, an old man told us we could not go onto the main road, so we turned inland, around one km from Unawatuna we saw foreigners on the side of the road, standing wet and traumatised in their swimming costumes, no passports, money or clothes. We stopped at the top of the road leading to the beach. Tuktuks rolled out of the beach road full of wet foreigners who were dropped on the main road where local vans waited to take the people inland to safety, whisking them off the temples and often hospitals. But slowly vehicles were running out of fuel and the drivers families were still in danger. In the Unawatuna area there were three waves, it was a heartbreaking scene, local people crying for their loved ones who could not be located, one French man asking us if we had seen his wife, American, blonde hair, he found his wife an hour later, her dead body. <\/p>\n

Our young friend stayed in Unawatuna helping to take bodies out of the sea, searching under the broken buildings, seeking bodies trapped in the debris. They had to be buried quickly for the heat that day was ferocious. Our house had no electricity but we had a laptop computer with a full battery and our land line phone was still working, we sent emails to U.K. news, our families in U.K. and to the U.K. Rotary Club asking for tents and other items for the now homeless people. No mobile phones worked owing to the towers being knocked down.<\/p>\n

On the 27th Dec we were surprised and shocked, we had expected to see helicopters coming to pick up wounded and drop food, but there were not even policemen on the roads, which were still blocked by debris. The homeless people were sheltering in the temples and their friends houses, food was a problem, often going without food themselves, local people were desperately trying to feed the foreigners whose beach side guest houses were uninhabitable,. <\/p>\n

Our electricity was turned on, but it was selective. We ran a cable to our local shop on the beach side which enabled him to keep his freezer going. We couldn’t understand why there were no helicopters to survey the damage, it wasn’t like the television news where one sees help rapidly coming to the needy, the tsunami wasn’t even mentioned on most foreign news, and if it was it was only in passing, we were abandoned by the world nobody knew the tragedy that had happened, and how many dead there were. <\/p>\n

Within three hundred meters of our village every dwelling was gone or badly damaged, the sea had rushed down small roads inland for two km. The railway tracks which take a sharp bend, eighty meters from our house stuck up into the air, twisted and broken. We didn’t know most of the big bridges on the main road from Colombo had collapsed. <\/p>\n

28th December the President has formed a task force we send and email telling them to clear the roads. <\/p>\n

We drove some Australian people to the small town of Habaraduwa to catch a special flight organised by their government. Little was left of the town, many many dead, even the school had gone. At the cemetery a small group of shocked, traumatised people stood grouped around two men digging yet another grave, funerals here are usually a noisy affairs but now there was only silence.<\/p>\n

29Th December, bulldozers appear on the roads to clear a pathway for vehicles. We went to Talpe the next village, now we were able to use the main road which had been partially cleared of debris. The houses either side of the road were just piles of brick and wood around two feet high, on these small piles sat families who last week lived full and productive lives, we had taken a small amount of clothing and sheets. We were looking for one of our students, we found him sheltering beneath a thin sheet of wood which had once been part of his house, Kasun, just seventeen years old. <\/p>\n

When we opened the car doors to give him our very small offerings, we smelt a musty, slightly sweet smell hanging in the air – obviously there were more bodies close by, as yet, unburied. He said “Thank you very much but you should go, it is a bad environment here”, last week I had everything, a house and a new job now I have nothing”. They told us they were hungry. We saw a water bowser distributing water, and another distributing food, but the food was dry rations (rice and dhal), to eat this they must cook it, but with no pots, water or matches how could they cook.<\/p>\n

In the days that followed the situation improved, but only a little. It rained for two or three days then the sun dried everything, to drive a car into Galle we wore medical masks because of the sandy dust which came into the car even with the windows closed. Ten tents arrived from U.K., the other two hundred and forty were taken for other places.<\/p>\n

Amazing people started to appear, a family living in Galle Fort started cooking rice and curry twice a day and sending it on lorries along the coast roads. They did this at their own expense, also their own personal labor. They cooked thousands of meals to feed the homeless and continued for many weeks. Two foreigners started a ‘soup kitchen’ in Unawatuna this fed many people in the village. Another local man took his lorry to Colombo every week and bought tents, rice, pots and pans and any useful items he could purchase from the city, all at his own expense. Contrary to some reports there was no religious or ethnic problems, the survivors helped each other whatever their beliefs. <\/p>\n

When the foreign NGO’s arrived, about two months after the tsunami we found little to recommend them, they ate at the best hotels and drove around in new vehicles. Most of them didn’t have the skills to help, building a house on sandy soil with five inch foundations is a disaster waiting to happen, and they weren’t aware that the houses needed septic tanks. Some did well, building many houses which, ten years on, are loved and appreciated. We attended meetings held under the auspices of the UNDP, from contacts we secured odd items for our local folk. Our best coup was a container full of boxes which consisted of dry rations, spoons, plates and cups, these we gave to the Habaraduwa Assistant Government Agent who, in turn gave them to the most needy families.<\/p>\n

The world abandoned us, had this happened in America or Europe by the 27th we would have received some help, as we saw in the Japan tsunami. I would recommend reading Wave, a book by Sonali Deraniyagala, she was caught in the waves, she was in a different part of the island but it was the same story, only local help. <\/p>\n

In the region of Battecoloa there is a small memorial, it says ‘In the District of Battecoloa 512 died in the tsunami’. A small number we thought until we realised the people there had, previous to the tsunami, departed the area to avoid death or torture by the LTTE.
\n
\nThis is about the brave, resourceful people of Sri Lanka, Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim who struggled for survival together against nature. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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By Hazel and Graham Gallagher We are expats living in Sri Lanka, we have lived here since 2002 and teach English language to a diverse selection of local people from Government workers to village children. We live in a village called Mihiripenne on the south coast. At 9:26 on Sunday the 26th December the village …<\/p>\n

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