Plan worker survives, but loses friends and family in tsunami

Mr. Perera

“The sea is alive” shouted one villager as a neighbour exclaimed that their 16-year-old son had drowned. Within minutes the police told Mr Perera, a Plan staff member, to leave the Sri Lankan village of Dehigahalanda, Hambantota immediately. Scooping up his 1½ year-old child, he and his wife rushed with their 6 year-old daughter to a Buddhist temple.

The tsunami created a huge gap between the shore and the sea before the second wave hit Hambantota. As survivors were scared that yet another wave would hit, Mr Perera collected his remaining relatives and got a lift with a truck to a school-now-refugee camp at Sooriya Wewa. But the camp rapidly became overcrowded.

Luckily, a friend with a house took the Pereras in, and they lived on dried fish, rice and water. Just as the water ran out staff from Plan Sri Lanka arrived to collect them, with water and bread.

“It feels like I have woken up from my sleep. At the time I didn’t feel anything. Only when we went to the Hambantota hospital to look for family and friends did I begin to realize the extent of the tsunami. We saw so many bodies. At that time about 1,000 bodies were received by the hospital. The saddest thing was the bodies of children in rubbish bins, four to five per bin as there was no place else to put them.” recalled Mr Perera. The Perera’s are now living with relatives in Colombo.  Mrs Perera is still in shock and their 6 year-old daughter is too scared to return home.

“I am still…still in my heart I feel so bad. I had to leave my neighbours when they needed us very badly. They helped us a lot when we were purchasing the house in Hambantota. That feeling hurts us more than losing some of my extended family and friends”, said Mr. Perera. 

Mr Chatura Perera works for Plan Sri Lanka, in the Colombo office in the IT department. On the day of the tsunami, he was supposed to go to the popular Sunday market on Hambantota beach with his family. The people who attended had no chance of surviving, including 35 members of Mr Perera’s extended family and friends. He would have been a casualty if he had got up late that day. Physically the Pereras are safe, but psychologically, who knows how long the wounds inside their hearts will take to heal.