In the hotels on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka is high season at Christmas. There is an exuberant atmosphere among holidaymakers from the region and around the world who spend the holidays on the beach under palm trees.
This was also the case on 26 December 2004, when a tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra also flooded the coasts of Sri Lanka and southern India. In Sri Lanka alone, almost 30,000 people were killed and about 890,000 lost their homes.
“The sea is coming towards the land”
“It was a wonderful day. It was 9 o’clock, I was at home. Suddenly my son came and said that the sea was coming to the land. I couldn’t believe it,” says Nissanka Epaliyana, of the Lions club in Hikkaduwa.
Siri Gonavardene, the director of the Coral Sands Hotel and president of the hotel association, can also remember December 26 15 years ago:
“Our hotel was the worst affected here in the region. I was here and saw the wave coming and we were all running for our lives. The whole hotel was destroyed. There were deaths among our guests. One of them was a regular from Germany, a university professor who spent 16 years with us every Christmas. We dedicated a room to him, which we call the Dr. Harder Auditorium, where his picture also hangs on the wall.”
Hardly any help from insurance companies
Epaliyana and Gonavardene sit on the veranda and look out to sea with concern. On this day, all those who witnessed and survived the disaster 15 years ago have a queasy feeling.
“There had never been an earthquake in Sri Lanka, so I hadn’t taken out any insurance against earthquake damage,” Gonavardene added. The insurance company claimed that the tsunami was triggered by a distant earthquake. “It was only after long negotiations that I received ten percent of the damage: six million rupees, equivalent to about 30,000 euros.”
Herber blow for the tourism industry
With the support of Germany, Epaliyana has launched several aid projects for victims of the tsunami, including training programs and scholarships for children and a children’s hospital. The clinic has 14 beds and is thus the largest in Sri Lanka, says Epaliyana: “And Professor Seidemann and Doctor Thomas from the Hannover Medical School come here regularly and train our people. And we have a project for telemedicine. If our doctors have a problem that they cannot solve, they can contact the Hannover Medical School.”
The damage caused by the tsunami has been largely repaired over the past 15 years. Tourism in Sri Lanka has also recovered from the disaster. Sri Lanka was even named the best travel destination of 2019 by the publishing house “Lonely Planet” – until in April this year a disaster of a different kind destroyed the hope of normality. The terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday – on three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo and other places – have caused serious damage to tourism, complains hotel manager Gonavardene. The industry, from which many people in the region live, has recovered rapidly from the tsunami. After the terrorist attacks, this will take longer.