Field Report:

NIROSHA'S TALE

By Nirosha Tilekaratne, December 28, 2004

SARID volunteer Nirosha Tilekaratne was at home in Seenigama, on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, when the tsunami hit.

Our house is at Munugoda, towards the eastern end of Seenigama (http://www.fallingrain.com/world/CE/34/Sinigama.html).
At about 9, I was getting ready to have a bath. I was in my nightdress. I heard my cousin shouting, so I put on my housecoat and went to see what it was.

She said that a massive wave was coming. I shouted to everybody to run for it and ran along the road inland, shouting to the neighbours to run for their lives.

My sister and sister-in-law joined me, with my sister-in-law's child. Most of the neighbours joined us. My aunt, who is old, had difficulty, so we put her in a vehicle which was headed away.

We didn't stop running until we got to Ampegama (http://www.fallingrain.com/world/CE/34/Ampegama.html), about 6 km away. One of my neighbours had been bathing and ran all the way inland stark naked.

My sister-in-law and cousin went back and were caught by the wave, but managed to save themselves by holding onto something. My cousin saw one of my aunts being washed away.

I was later told that the water came in far past our village. Several women had their infants dragged from their hands.

Some of the villagers were at the temple, which is on higher ground, and were saved. We were helped by the people at Ampegama, who gave us food and water. Later we walked back to my cousin's house, also on higher ground, between Ampegama and Munugoda.

In the late afternoon, I went back to Seenigama with my sister-in-law, who is very brave. There were bodies everywhere. There was a big pit where the raod used to be at Werellana, on the coast due west of Munugoda. The houses on the seaward side were all destroyed.

In Munugoda, the garden walls had collapsed, but the houses were still standing. A dog who comes to sleep in our yard at night had run up to the upper floor of a neighbour's house and came running down to meet us when we arrived at our house.

We usually keep our jewellery under the bed and it was perfectly safe, though everything else was covered in mud. So we had no clothes. The sewing machine was lodged up in the rafters. The main bed had floated up and the sheets were dry.

Most of my family members were scattered around, but we all got together by the next day.

We were among the lucky ones.