Sri Lanka It's Happening

December 27, 2004

Today we made the ardous trip down to Galle, to look into the well being of an Aunt and an Uncle who have lost their houses. The Galle road is completely blocked off and as a result we had to take a circutious route. On the way we heard that news about the train that was lost. Apperently only a handfull of passengers had managed to save themselves while nearly a thousand had lost their lives.

Galle and other coastal towns beyond Galle have been almost almost completely cut off. The road is nothing more than a series of narrow country lanes connecting one village to another. As such there no road signs. Or there were no road signs until people in the villages put them up.

These roads were never meant to cope with these levels of traffic. In many places the road is too narrow for two busses to cross. In such places and in junctions the villagers had organized themselves to direct traffic and to keep things flowing. I take my hats off to these unsung heros who were still at it when we made our return journey late in the night.

In other places other thoughtfull people had placed water cans and glasses either for the travellers to quench their own thirst or to be taken to the places with out clean water. This is a country road and you will hardly find a place to buy drink so these gestures have to be really appreciated.

The journey to galle usually takes three hours, on this alternate route it was 5 hours of continous jolting but it was worth it to finally meet up with our aunt and her family. They and countless thousands of others like them are staying at their freind's houses.

Some people who survived are not so lucky, they have either lost their friends as well or their friends have no way of reaching them. There is no petrol or diesel in any of the coastal towns and many of the roads are still impassable.

Most towns had been without electricity for nearly a day and many people in the towns that were unaware of the proportions of the calamity. They were under the impression that the waves were localized. For example my aunt hadn't even realised until my mother told her yesterday over the phone, that their brother was also effected.

In the end our journey was only half successfull; we never got see the uncle or his family the bridge that leads to Unawatuna has cracked. The circutious route takes too long at this time of the day and we had to sadly return to colombo mission half accomplished.

Posted by raditha at December 27, 2004 11:36 PM