When the sea came to the village

One week ago if someone had asked me to name a natural disaster that would span thousands of miles and affect a dozen countries, the only thing my mind could have come up with would’ve been a collision with a large comet. Who could have thought that such fury could be unleashed upon Mother Earth from within her bowels?

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We flew out of Colombo – we were there on transit – on the morning of 26th December, a little before the killer waves struck the Sri Lankan coast.  It was not a close call – the Colombo airport  wasn’t affected – but near and dear ones were worried until they heard from us.  Later we received mails from some German friends expressing concern and enquiring about the well-being of our family back home.  The tragedy seems to have touched almost everyone, everywhere.

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A good starting point for more information on the disaster : the Wikipedia entry.

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On a slightly different note:

In her recent post on this topic,
Leela says: "If tragedy chose you, there was no escape."  How true.  A
few weeks back, while travelling in a train through Kerala, I watched a
succession of houses – huts, small cottages, big mansions – all in a
partially demolished state, as if a bulldozer had run through them.  It
turned out true: a little ahead along the same line, I saw a group of
workers laying a new railway track. Some days later I heard of people
in Bangalore who had been notified that their houses will have to make
way for the new Metro line. You can flee the waves by building your
cottage inland, you can buttress your walls with substances that
withstand earthquakes, but what can you do if some authorities plan to
build a highway through the very space you inhabit?