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A
tourist who lived through the tsunami as it struck the hotel in
which he was staying in Wadduwa recounts those moments They are even different from the many aid workers and reporters who flocked in afterwards and have seen the terrible destruction and loss of life. These have many first hand experiences of death and devastation and the computer and TV screens and newspapers are overflowing with the images. They themselves can sense the sights, sounds and smells of the aftermath. They and even those who were thousands of miles away can see vivid live pictures of waters rising over hotel gardens and roaring along roads, people clinging on to cars and buses, debris rafting along in huge wide torrents. They may get some feel for what has happened. It is not the same as living through it and there is no pleasure in this sense of exclusivity. Perhaps surprisingly we suffered only minor disturbance. We were in a very solid hotel whose ground floor was washed out while we stood on the first floor balcony of our room watching and taking pictures. There was some panic as we went up to the third storey when it looked as though a second wave was coming but apart from a day without running water and six hours without power we got off lightly. The unbelievably dedicated hotel staff patiently shepherded their guests from the grounds despite the selfish protests of those who wanted to see it all close up. They looked after us and provided ample free drinks. They conjured a fresh hot meal from somewhere within two hours of the wave and by evening they had refurbished an upper room and served us a full evening meal almost as though the destruction on the floor below was non-existent. Our travel company picked us up at the correct hour next morning and we got a flight back and got home on time with all our possessions intact. There has been much pontificating about how many thousands of lives would have been saved if an early warning system had been in place. Experts write knowledgeably about how the Pacific system can stop the traffic and issue warnings almost instantaneously in Japan and the Eastern seaboard of the US. This time it would have made almost no difference. Unlike the Pacific rim there is no infrastructure and tsunamis are rare enough to fade from memory. Southern Sri Lanka, unlike one correspondent's confident assertion does not have a TV in every beach bar. The military and the police are few and stretched. The roads are appalling. Human behaviour would not have had people leaving their shops, possessions and homes - to the looters - long enough in advance to escape. Even where there was thirty minutes warning the local people went down on to the exposed sea bed to grab what they could and some Western tourists displayed ghoulish insensitivity as they insisted on being right at the waters edge as it approached putting others who urged them away at further risk. That is not however an argument for not putting in a system now. We can at least learn. At the time - and I say this realising it may shock, it was rather exciting. The sea was too high and then it inexorably rolled back about quarter of a mile exposing the sea bed. We all thought this was the back wash of a wave and expected the sea to return. It happened slowly. Local fisherman ran down on to the exposed sea bed and started catching the large crabs which usually they can never reach. Some went out fifty yards or more while the water retreated as though a plug had been pulled out. It came back again slowly at first, there was no wall of water. It just kept on rising and rising with parallel lines of surf. It spilled into the hotel garden pouring brown mud into the turquoise blue swimming pools and lifting up sunbeds, tables and umbrellas like feathers. The fishing boat tied to the coconut palms some twenty minutes before was lifted up and smashed to driftwood against the trees. The snack bar by the pool filled with water and the doors burst. The downstairs restaurant windows caved in under the pressure. The grassed area at the back of the hotel became a swirling lake. A few hotel staff, caring to the last, having ushered the reluctant tourists into their rooms from the advancing water which eventually had them running, were left in the waves and clung to the trees. It did not look as though anyone we could see would lose their life and it was not terrifying, it was strangely enthralling. Immediately afterwards as the waters fell almost as quickly as they had risen, leaving behind murky pools there was a sense of mutual relief, almost like after a roller coaster ride. We had not seemed to be in direct danger and it was over. Of course we did not know how much had happened elsewhere although the hotel next door had been destroyed and we all had seen the fragility of the local houses and could imagine how they would have fared. After the relief came the realization of how much devastation there must have been further south. The figures now show that some 500 people in the area we were in, lost their lives. We survived, we should be, and we are thankful. We were very lucky. We are back in a country with running water, central heating, unlimited food and excessive luxury. But we almost were not. We were driving along the south coast road three days before. We had drinks in a coastal bar in the south and lunch in a Galle restaurant, two places that do not exist now and whose staff almost certainly are dead. We were in that hotel as a second choice and might have been in one on the south coast or even its sister hotel on the East where there is now one wall standing and two surviving staff. The writer is Professor of Infectious Diseases and Honorary Consultant Physician at Addenbrook's Hospital, UK. He had travelled from Colombo to Kandy and down to the South East coast then along the South coast road to Galle and then to Wadduwa to the hotel from which the pictures were taken. (Courtesy The Times, UK and Peterhouse Annual Record) |
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