Sri Lanka It's Happening

December 30, 2004

There are absolutely shocking scenes on tv the other day. In one hospital the morgues were overflowing and the dead were laid out on the floors and people were weeping next to some of the bodies. In the same row there is a rows of infants some of them cannot be more than a few hours old. I hope their mothers are dead too or the grief will be too much to bear. That's the sad fate that has befallen many new mums at the galle hospital.

The galle hospital is just across the road from where my aunt's house used to be. Being of sturdier construction it didn't collapse but patients had been washed away in their beds while the nurses and other staff struggled powerless against the raging waves. One mother who had just delivered her baby had been saved and taken to the nearby karapitiya hospital. No one knows what became of her baby.

Another new mum had struggled her way to the fourth floor of her hospital despite the pain from the ceasarian operation carrying her newborn. Her relatives had found her hours later. What joy and what courage.