Death and destruction on the way home

By Himal Kotelawala and Damith Wickramaskera , Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara, Berty Mendis, Ranjith Perera and Athula Devapriya

Forty four year old N. L. G. Amara Kusum was heading home from work one hour later than the usual time. She had stayed behind to put in an hours overtime at her work place in Ratmalana. She called her 15-year-old daughter and told her she was going to be late.

Kusum lived down Madapatha Road, a few kilometres away from Piliyandala. She took the 157 Piliyandala - Kahapola bus daily. On Friday, her daughter and ten-year-old son were awaiting her return as usual. They lived with Kusum’s mother. Their father had passed away eight years ago.

The two children and their grandmother heard about the bomb blast that ripped through the roof of a bus at the Piliyandala bus stand at about 6.45 pm that day. Kusum, who usually came home by 6, was late.

They turned on the TV and what they saw horrified them. Kusum’s mother and daughter began to panic. Her son was too young to understand what was happening. Their relatives and neighbours went looking for her. They searched everywhere, including the Piliyandala, Kalubowila and National Hospitals but there was no sign of her but they continued their search. A few minutes to midnight, they found her dead at the Piliyandala Hospital.

This was the account given by Kusum’s aunt-in-law, Daya Milleniya. The two children are now orphans, first losing their father and now their mother to the deadly blast. Kusum’s distraught sister N. L. G. Anula told The Sunday Times that Kusum had been employed at a private factory in Ratmalana for 20 years providing for her two young children.

“She was the breadwinner as well as the one who did all the housework. What is going to happen to the two children now? I have two other sisters and it was Kusum who saw to their marriages as well. She took care of all of us,” Anula said. Kusum’s aunt added that it would help the children if the government could pay compensation for their loss.

“We can look after them. But these two children are still very young. They have to be educated,” she said tearfully. Jinesha Shamali Perera and Dilan Chandika (both 28) had got engaged on February 11 this year. The young lovers, who had been together for the past seven years, were to wed soon. But sadly, their dreams were blasted away with the shrapnel of the bomb.

Jinesha’s sister, Badhra was on her way home from work in Wellawatta. The passengers of the bus she was travelling in were talking about a blast that had occurred in Piliyandala. She got home with a heavy and fast beating heart.

Jinesha lived only a few houses away from Kusum’s house and her story was just as tragic. Her sister recounted to The Sunday Times the horrific hours they spent waiting for some news about Jinesha, fearing the worst. They too, like Kusum’s family had visited the hospitals in search of her but couldn’t find her, until they saw her body lying on a stretcher at the Kalubowila hospital.

Jinesha’s fiancé had met her at the Piliyandala bus stand and they both got onto the ill-fated bus. They lived in close proximity to each other, so they usually took the same bus home. They probably discussed their future plans on their way there. Unfortunately, that was to be their last trip home. The young lovers died together.

W. H. Margaret (53) was a schoolteacher at the Madapatha Philip Attygala Maha Vidyalaya. She was returning home after visiting her husband, a retired Army officer who was receiving treatment at the Kalubowila Hospital when she got caught up in the blast.

“She taught Social Studies for 24 years at the school. She was a mother of three,” a relative said. Margaret had died in the hospital. It had taken her family several hours to find out about her fate. Ven. Vepathaira Gnananda Thera was another victim of the brutal massacre. He had been walking past the bus when the bomb went off.

Fellow Buddhist monk Ven. Pitigala Panyaratna Thera said Gnananda Thera was a highly qualified Buddhist teacher lecturing at many pirivena centres in Colombo.

“He was returning from some inspections he had done in Colombo. He had received a call asking him to come for a preaching ceremony (bana),” Ven. Panyaratna Thera said.

The priest was admitted to the Piliyandala Hospital soon after the blast and was given saline. He was alive for about 15 minutes and then succumbed to injuries, mainly due to internal bleeding, hospital sources said.

Ayomi and Amal from Madapatha have been married for 12 years Amal was working at the Hatton National Bank, Mt. Lavinia branch and was returning from work when he was killed in the blast. Ayomi who is still in shock was unable to speak to us.

S. Mathanan, Manager of HNB, Mt. Lavinia branch said at around 5.50 p.m. he had left office and it had been a great shock for them as they had seen on the television news Amal wearing a t-shirt bearing the bank logo.

“We tried to get through to him over the phone but it kept ringing and there was no answer, that’s when we panicked and rushed to the Kalubowila hospital,” he said. These are some of the tragic tales of the unfortunate victims of Friday evening’s bomb blast. The lives of so many families were shattered in a split second by the senseless act of violence perpetrated on innocent civilians. What many of the victims’ families had to ask was, “Will this ever end?”

There were many people who witnessed Friday’s deadly bomb blast and The Sunday Times spoke to a few of them. A.D. Ananda Ratnasiri who was the driver of the ill fated bus said there were more than 100 passengers in the bus at the time of the blast.

“Suddenly I felt a pain in the back of my head and all the glasses of the bus shattered into tiny pieces like dust. I cannot recall anything after that,” he said.

Dumitri Deepika Wijesundara (36) was in the bus stand with her daughter and son when the blast occurred.“My daughter had classes at Piliyandala and there was no one at home to keep my son with so I took him along too. We were at the Bus halt. Suddenly we were thrown forward from the bus stand and I felt a terrible pain in my left hand. It was bleeding from my face too. The children were screaming and I hugged them both with my right hand,” she said.

Her son Anjana(10), is still suffering from shock.“I saw a big orange light from the bus and I saw pieces of glass and dust flying everywhere. People were shouting and crying around us and there was blood all over the place,” her 10 year old Anjana said.

While 26 people lost their lives in the Piliyandala bus bomb blast and the question of security on buses came to the fore once again, Transport Minister Dulles Alahapperuma says vigilance is the most powerful shield against the LTTE.

He said security measures that were already in place would be further strengthened but there was little use of additional security measures if people were not vigilant.

He said although there were armed forces in charge of security in the Central Bus Stand in Pettah the Private bus stand on Bastian Road, it was not practical to do so at all bus stands.

“It was raining hard on Friday evening and the buses were crowded. People were hurrying home and the LTTE took advantage of this,” the minister said adding that the people should never let down their guard.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) chairman R. A. Tudor Dayaratna said although SLTB was implementing all necessary security measures on buses things could go wrong which could result in disaster. “It was raining and the buses were crowded. The LTTE is bound to change its strategy with every attack,” he said adding that although instructions have been given to check parcels and people the rain might have hampered the operations giving the LTTE an opportunity to strike.

Nandana Kumara (26), one of the victims of the bus blast, joined the Buddhist clergy at the age of nine but decided to give up his monk’s robes in order to support his family. In his desperation to find work, he took on a job as an SLTB bus conductor. That decision decided his fate, when on Friday evening his bus became the target of yet another terrorist bombing.

Mr. Kumara’s family, who live in the village of Bombuwala, in Kalutara South, is still in a state of shock following the tragedy. On the morning of that fateful Friday, Nandana woke up early and as usual swept the house before leaving for work. Mrs. T.D. Dayawathi recalled her son saying he would take leave on Saturday to help in some repair work that was under way in the house.

Despite his mother’s fears about her son taking on a job with the SLTB, in view of the fact that buses had become regular terrorist targets, Nandana had assured his family that there was nothing to worry about because he would be working in a remote area.

In his first few days with the SLTB, Mrs. Dayawathi noticed her son would return from work looking exhausted. She said he was not used to working long hours. He also rejected the idea of boarding in a room close to his workplace. “He would cry Amme, say he was very tired and go to bed early.”

Earlier, Nandana had taken up a job in a garment factory but gave it up after one month, saying he was not happy there. Nandana was ordained as a Buddhist monk at the age of nine at the Bombuwala Temple, and studied at a pirivena in Horana until he reached the age of 21. “He then decided to give up the robes in order to be with the family”, his mother said.

According to his mother, Nandana was a good student. He passed his A/Ls, but rejected the family suggestion that he apply for a place at a teaching college. He said was not interested in becoming a teacher. Instead, he followed a computer course, with financial support from his younger brother, who worked as a mason.

“Nandana would wear his brother’s clothes to work uncomplainingly. He was very concerned about the family. When his father, P. G. Sugathadasa was found to be suffering from high blood pressure, Nandana asked him to stop going to work.”Nandana’s eldest sister, Inoka Samanmali, recalled how she would take care of her brothers when they returned from school, until their parents come home from work.

“I used to bathe my little brothers and feed them and look after them,” she said. “Nandana was not like Chandana, the youngest, who was playful. Nandana was not playful. He was sensitive and afraid of even the smallest of wounds.”Arisha Dilani, Nandana’s second eldest sister, recalled her brother saying he was very happy to work at the Kesbewa bus depot, in the short period he was employed there. “He said the Kesbewa depot had many facilities and the people there were good to him.”

Nandana’s mobile phone, which has not yet been recovered, continues to ring whenever Chandana, Nandana’s younger brother calls, but no one answers.

The Colombo South Teaching Hospital (Kalubowila), which received the majority of the victims of Friday’s bus bomb blast, continues to treat some 49 persons in its wards, while one severely injured person remains in the surgical intensive care unit, said the hospital’s deputy director Dr. Wilfred Kumarasiri. Of the bomb blast victims being treated at the hospital, 38 are male and 11 female.

“A total of 63 patients were admitted, but one female patient died on admission. Of the remaining 62 patients, seven have been transferred to the National Hospital and six were discharged after treatment,” he said.

Dr. Kumarasiri said the bodies of 14 victims were lying at the Kalubowila hospital, 11 of them males. One was an 11-year-old boy. “All 14 bodies have been identified, and we have asked that they be handed over to the families of the victims. Most of the deaths were the result of burns and internal bleeding,” he said. The majority of the injured were being treated for burnt, cuts and bruises.

Dr. Hector Weerasinghe, director of the National Hospital, Colombo, said the hospital received nine bomb blast victims, and one had died on admission. Seven of the patients had been transferred from the Kalubowila hospital and two were sent directly to the National Hospital.

“Of the eight surviving patients, four are in the intensive care unit and four are in the wards,” he said. “We are trying to give the patients with us the best available treatment.”

District Medical Officer Dr. (Mrs.) R. Vincent said some 30 patients were admitted to the Piliyandala hospital soon after the bomb blast, and 20 of them were transferred to the Kalubowila hospital.

“Post-mortems are under way on 11 bodies in the Piliyandala hospital,” she said. “Among the dead are five males and six females. The bodies will be handed over to the families shortly.”She said most of the injured had been discharged, with only five patients remaining in the hospital.“I must thank all the hospital staff, the doctors and private practitioners in and around the area for giving us their fullest support,” Dr. Vincent added.