Tsunami

On December 26, 2004, at approximately 10AM local time, one of the deadliest tsunamis ever recorded, hit the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. As of this writing, the death toll is creeping toward 40,000; almost 0.2% of my country's population is now dead. Hundreds of thousands have lost everything except what they were wearing at the time.

We Sri Lankans have always considered ourselves fortunate for living in a country that knows no natural disasters -- no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no tornadoes, only a very ocassional and relatively mild flood in some areas, and no tsunamis. Our weather is never too cold and rarely too hot. We're a third world country, but ancient travelers called this country paradise with good reason. The vast majority of Sri Lankans have never heard of tsunamis -- there is no word for it in Sinhala, the local language. When the first small wave hit, and then the shore receded, few thought of running.

I was not affected; neither was my family. We live in the Western Province, where most of the population is concentrated. Even after being broken on the eastern coast, the wave took many lives and did great damage along the southern and western coasts. If the tsunami had come from the west, it would probably have been the end of the country.