For a little bit of love

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Surviving the tsunami.

Photo: G M B Akash

It was December 2004, the 26th morning, I think at about 9 am. I was in Unawatuna, on the southern tip of Sri Lanka with Michael, a friend, when the waves hit. Our hotel was only 20 metres from the sea, and the rooms facing it were completely washed away. Our room was the only one left standing. I still do not know why I am alive when a lot of others died. We were sleeping and, suddenly, I woke up for no reason. I looked out the window and saw the wave coming.

I woke Michael up just as the wave broke in and the water level rapidly began to rise. As the room door broke, the water washed in a foreigner and his young daughter, perhaps six years old. The little girl kept asking her father, ‘What shall we do?’ The father and Michael wanted to leave the room, but I said I didn’t think we should go anywhere. The only thing that stopped me from panicking was the little girl on my shoulders. I said the only thing we could do was pray, as the water kept rising till we were just seven inches from the ceiling. We floated up and held on to the ceiling light fixture, breathing the air trapped between the water and the roof. At some point, the water started to go down. I still don’t know how long we clung to the fans.

My first instinct was to run out and see if anybody needed help. I did find many – at least four people, plus three dogs that I put up on a roof. That’s when I cut my feet on the corral. I helped a fat lady who was crying, ‘Oh my god, oh my god! Why did this happen?’ I couldn’t move her, so I just pulled her out and placed her as high as I could, on some construction planks lying nearby. I also found a little girl who was stuck on some debris. She ran off after I released her, heading inland. My feet were bleeding badly from the coral cuts. The whole bay had emptied and the naked seabed looked like hell on earth, with rubble scattered all over it.

I ran back to the main road with Michael. There were dead bodies all over, people running – it was as if the whole world has gone crazy. I got to the main road, maybe 700 metres away, and went into a hotel. There, some people gave us tea and bandaged my wounds. A foreign tourist, a nurse I think, bound up my foot. Michael was in shock, and I did not know what to do or say to help him. Suddenly, a family whom we had met the night before sprung into my mind, and I told Michael that I was going back to find them. It was a hard walk, as we were both injured, and besides we were the only ones heading back towards the beach. I did something very unfair, I think, by asking Michael to come along. But I am thankful he did.

Eventually, we made it to a hotel called the Rock House, on top of a hill. There, I saw my friends, the Lambert family, from afar, and suddenly felt an incredible joy and even peace. Michael and I decided that we would stay with them until the whole thing ended.

Suddenly, someone shouted that there was another wave coming our way, so everyone ran up the hill again. It was crazy, as no one knew what was going on or what to do. We ended up at a temple on top of the hill, where we found shade among the trees. Just then the second wave hit – it came a bit closer to the hotel, but this time no one was hurt. We were safe, but confused about what to do. After some time we all went back to the hotel. We found that the water had not reached that far, so we stayed.

Unfortunately, there was no water or food – no one had been prepared for something like this. So I told Michael that we needed to go back to the road and get some stuff from a shop there. Although he steadfastly refused, I didn’t listen; I got a bag and any cash I could find and I set off. Eventually, Michael gave in and we ran to the road. Both of us were injured and my feet hurt terribly. We got to the road only to find out that all the shops were closed. We were able to find one of the owners, however, who opened up a store and we were able to get our hands on some water, food, candles and whatever else was available.

Getting back to our hotel was not made easier by the rumours of another wave. We did make it back, however, and still no wave had come our way. I soon realised that the food and water we had brought was not going to be enough. I decided to head back to the beach, where I found some food boxes from a cooler that had been washed away from the hotels. I filled a bag with these and returned to the hotel.

That night we found out that all the roads were closed and that we would be stuck here for another three to four days, at least. Michael and I had gotten so close to the Lamberts that we felt like we were a part of their family. They were worried about us, and wanted us to sit down and rest. But I didn’t – I had found some strength in me that even I was unaware of until that moment. Shan, the doctor who dressed my wounds, asked me not to move around. I said to her, ‘If you stop to rest, then so will I.’ She had three children of her own to take care of, but she was untiring in her efforts to help others.

The hotel provided daal and rice that night for everyone, but I don’t think any of us ate anything. I tried sleeping, but one nightmare after another ensured that I got no rest. I got to thinking about the hotel owners, who were not that well off but were nonetheless taking care of two hundred people for free. Then there was Shan, who could not be with her kids as she was desperately needed by so many others. At one point I said to her, ‘Shan, you’re a hero!’ She just turned to me and said, ‘The real heroes are my kids – they have been so good and helpful!’

There was an old Englishman, Stewart, whose wounds were so severe that he could have died at any moment. He could not even lie down as his ribs were broken. He was incredibly brave though, and kept up a constant stream of jokes. The Lamberts were like a team of angels, who went around trying to do whatever they could to help. I think they took such good care of Stewart that he made it through, as did I. That night we slept with only the light of the moon and a few candles to keep us company.

More people had come in through the night, and most of them were wounded. Everyone rose above the usual social barriers and did what needed to be done. In the midst of doing so, however, again we heard reports that another wave was coming. We all ran up the hill and waited at the side of a temple until it became clear that there wasn’t going to be another tsunami – yet. This happened several times before we smartened up, resolving to verify our facts before taking action. We also decided to make our retreat in a more orderly fashion, making sure that no one was left behind.

Recollect: Post-tsunami, drawing was an important way for schoolchildren to try to get over trauma.
Art: Annaandhugh

Again we realised that there were no provisions for the next night, so Michael and I collected money from everyone and went to buy food and water. We got a team of about seven men, but most of them abandoned us when they heard more rumours of another wave. At one point, even Michael and another man who had stayed with us wanted to turn back, but I kept going and they were forced to follow me.

We went back to the same shop, but this time the shopkeeper was not willing to give us what we needed. He said he had begun to ration his provisions. I told him about the three hundred people at the hotel, but he did not believe me. So, we took what we could get. We had managed to fill our bags, and their weight made walking difficult. By this time another alert had been sounded, and everyone on the beach was again moving inland. Once again, Michael, myself and another man were the only ones running in the opposite direction.

On our way, just before the beach, I saw a broken-down shop with three crates of drinks. I knew the water we were carrying would not be enough for the needy at the hotel, so I went into the shop and each of us hoisted a crate. Now our loads had doubled, and my feet were starting to feel like jelly. The other two men ran fast, but I was so far behind that I soon lost sight of them. Thankfully, Michel came back and I asked him to drop off his stuff and come back to help with mine. I stopped a man who was running away from the beach and he helped me put the case of drinks on top of my head. It was only then that I remembered the three-day-old hit I had taken on my head. My head began to hurt. I put the case back down and sat on some fallen pillars, from where I could see the beach clearly.

I looked around slowly, and suddenly realised I was looking at a man’s face in the sand. I thought it was a dead body buried under the sand, but it turned out to be the face alone. I turned away. The sea looked mad and angry, and I said to it, ‘If you are going to take me, you will have to take this crate of drinks as well, cuz there’s no way I’m going back without it.’

I finally got back to the hotel, drank a little water and rested for a half-hour. By this time, volunteers had begun to bring in the dead. I hauled a lot of bodies out and we all grieved for them, but my eyes remained dry. I am normally a person who cries fairly easily, but this time my eyes would not release tears.

The bodies were not recognisable, so the grief we felt was disconnected and generalised. A man from the beach walked in with a dead baby, and handed it to its mother. Again I didn’t cry, but in my heart I did. How could this happen? I didn’t want to fall apart, but I could feel it starting. There were things I was willing to do that others were not, like move dead bodies – someone had to.

So many bodies, rotting. The stench will never leave me. I told the boys that we needed to take photos of the dead, but also look for tattoos or birthmarks that would help families identify the badly decomposed bodies. We found the body of a foreign woman; when I tried to lift her, her hands came off, and there were maggots all over. The worst part was the smell … I don’t have the words to describe it. With nothing else we could do, we wrapped her in a big sheet and left her there. We must have covered around ten other bodies on both sides of the road. There were many more left uncovered.

We went back to the hotel and took care of the bodies there, too. The stench was becoming completely unbearable, and if we didn’t bury the corpses soon no one would be able to remain on the hotel’s grounds. There were about seven bodies – one man, five women including a pregnant one, and an infant. Two other bodies were claimed by a local man, who said they were his wife and infant. It was very hard to wrap up the pregnant woman as her stomach was starting to open up, and any quick movement would mean she would just come apart.

After that, we set out to dig graves. More people had come to the hotel, but only a few were helping. I was very upset about that – the digging was hard work. There were ten of us, but soon more turned up and started to make a path to the graves. After we got to about six feet down, we stopped; we did not have the strength to dig farther. We buried them all in one big grave, taking one body at a time and lowering it into the hole. Throughout I was wearing wrap-around pants that belonged to one of the Lambert women, and while carrying one of the bodies to the grave my pants fell off. That was probably the most embarrassing moment for me, but it made a lot of people smile so it felt worth it.

A bulldozer had made an appearance, and was clearing all the debris off the road. As it moved the rubble more bodies were found, but by this time I was feeling so tired. I had a high fever, was vomiting, and my body ached all over. We went to sleep that night with the all the candles we could find lit up around us.

The next morning a lot of people had managed to find ways to get away from the hotel, but more from the surrounding beaches had turned up. A few people were getting things organised, acting like leaders, and I decided to go see my room. When I got there, I felt as though I was looking at a grave that had been prepared for me, from which I had barely escaped. Michael kept telling me that I was a ‘hard person to kill’. Later that day, wandering through the rubble, we found what was left of a room in the hotel that had three crates of water – that was like finding a pot of gold.

Finally, and suddenly, it was all over. By 5.30 that evening, we were all on a bus back to Colombo. The next day, the Lambert family went to Negombo, another town that had been hit by the tsunami, looking for their belongings, which they had left there. Evidently they found their stuff completely untouched, and set off to the airport immediately thereafter. They call me their ‘spiritual son’. It is crazy what an experience like this can do to the human spirit – my relationships with the Lamberts and some of the others became one of the strongest bonds I’ve experienced: everything gets cast aside at times of disaster. The truth is we are all one big family – we all feel the same pain and sadness, we all have the same needs, and we all need a little bit of love.

--Timothy Senaviratne, now Timothy Barco, is a photographer and filmmaker based in Zurich. His book 3 Friends and the Big Wave has been translated into Sinhala, Tamil and Japanese.

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