Just inland from the waves crashing on Sri Lanka’s palm-fringed shores, the train slowly came to a stop on Thursday – marking the moment a deadly tsunami struck 20 years ago.
Sri Lanka’s Ocean Queen Express became a symbol of the worst natural disaster to hit the South Asian nation in living memory when the train was hit by huge waves on December 26, 2004.
About 1,000 people died – both travelers and local residents who had ventured inland in search of shelter after being hit by the first wave.
After they boarded, two large waves hit the train, separating it from the tracks and dumping it on the shore more than 100 meters from the shoreline.
Every year since then, the Ocean Queen stops at Peraliya, a sleepy village about 90 kilometers south of the capital Colombo, on the anniversary of the tsunami to commemorate those killed.
“For me, it all brings back very difficult memories,” said Tekla Jesenthu, whose 2-year-old daughter died after being hit by waves in the area. “I don’t want to think or talk about it – it’s too hurtful.”
“The monuments won’t bring them back,” he said.
climb to survive
Survivors and relatives of the dead boarded the train in Colombo early in the morning before it headed south, waving national flags before it and then stopping in slow motion in remembrance.
The villagers came out, the line was closed and there was peace for a few moments.
Along with Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim ceremonies, mourners laid flowers and burned incense at a beachside memorial to the 1,270 people buried in mass graves.
“When I saw the first wave, I started running away from the waves,” said mother UA Kulawati, 73, whose daughter died, her body washed into the sea.
“The water reached roof level and people climbed onto roofs to save themselves.”
A magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the west coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island sent huge waves that spread across the coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries around the Indian Ocean basin.
A total of 226,408 people died as a result of the tsunami according to EM-DAT, a recognized global disaster database. Of them, 35,399 were in Sri Lanka.
Sarani Sudeshika, 36, a baker whose mother-in-law was among those killed, recalled how “animals started making strange sounds and people started shouting, ‘Sea water is coming.'”