Thushari, 15, has good reason to be crying. She saw both her parents swept to their deaths by the ferocious Indian Ocean tsunami, which also pulverised her family home and tore her from her siblings. At a Buddhist temple where she and scores of other homeless in Sri Lanka’s southern city of Galle are sheltering,…
Read moreStudent pins Sri Lanka’s hopes on generous aid
Wearing a donated red T-shirt, pale green pleated skirt and rubber thongs, Waruni Delpagodage, 18, ponders her future in the refugee camp her destitute family has fled to in the tsunami aftermath. "A year. I think my parents will have to stay here for about a year, that’s how long it’s going to take to…
Read moreSri Lanka’s southern Catholics celebrate return of statue
Sri Lankan Catholics in the southern town of Matara have celebrated the return of a statue that disappeared during the Asian tsunami disaster only to be found days later unscathed. Around 100 Catholics held mass on Sunday at the Our Lady of Matara Shrine, where some 200,000 Sri Lankan pilgrims typically converge for a major…
Read moreSri Lanka’s hard-hit fisherfolk ponder their future
Fishing runs in the veins of N.G. Punchihewa, 71: his father was a fisherman and his grandfather before him. Punchihewa’s son, too, was carrying on the tradition until the December 26 tsunami struck. But now the 37 boats that plied the waters night and day off the southern Sri Lankan village of Thotamuna, at the…
Read moreAid trickles in southern Sri Lanka, but more urgently needed
In the grounds of a college at this southern Sri Lankan town lashed by tsunami a week ago, giant pots of rice and lentils are being cooked over wood fires for the masses crowding into classrooms. Workers flit around the grassy courtyard and a team of South Korean medics had set up shop in one…
Read moreForeigners caught in killer tsunami dig in to help Sri Lanka
Wearing shorts, rubber thongs and a pair of washing up gloves, New Zealander Scott Gardiner is standing in a sewerage drain ankle deep in sludge, joining the huge effort needed to clean up Sri Lanka. The 29-year-old artist and his girlfriend Bianca Wilks, 27, are among scores of tourists refusing to leave this popular resort…
Read moreTsunami scared Sri Lankans plead with tourists to return soon
Fearful of a bleak economic future, tsunami scared Sri Lankans in this southern holiday resort village that was flattened by the killer sea surges are urging foreign tourists to return. Nearly all the survivors here depend on foreign tourists who are lured by a coconut palm-studded surf beach and excellent diving. Many of the locals…
Read morePriests, volunteers keep hope alive for tsunami victims
Catholic priest Nihal Nanayakkara has not slept since Christmas. Not only is he the priest of a church in this tragedy-struck town, but also caretaker of thousands of tsunami victims taking refuge in the building. On Boxing Day, when tsunami waves lashed the coastline of Sri Lanka, thousands of people from Galle rushed in terror…
Read moreVery little water but lots of champagne”: panic in Sri Lankan paradise”
Sri Lanka’s famous Taprobane Island, a speck of palm-fringed paradise just off the southern coast, was lashed by the deadly tsunami, leaving its visitors stranded but its world-renowned villa spared. Owner Geoffrey Dobbs, who threw the historical villa’s doors open to well-heeled paying guests after refurbishing it in the 1990s, was swimming off the island…
Read moreBodies still entombed in train swallowed by tsunami
The buzz of an electric chain saw pierces the air as it cuts through a coconut palm pinning a bloated corpse. It is the only sound of rescue here where the sea swallowed an entire train packed with 1,500 passengers. At this site of mass death and destruction — where the Indian Ocean sped in…
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