Head guard Wanigaratne Karunatilleke was one of the few people on the Ocean Queen Express to survive when a wall of water slammed into the train on Sri Lanka’s south coast a decade ago.
Yesterday, the 58-year-old flagged off the train for a special journey to commemorate the approximately 1,000 passengers killed when the Asian tsunami hit Sri Lanka, the country’s worst-ever disaster.
“I am sad so many of my passengers died that day,” he said. “But I am happy we are remembering the victims and holding religious services.”
The Ocean Queen Express, which was rebuilt after the tsunami, has become a symbol of the disaster in Sri Lanka and was at the center of commemorations for the country’s 31,000 victims yesterday.
Survivors and relatives of the dead boarded the train early yesterday morning in Colombo and headed to Peraliya, the same place where it was ripped from the tracks, about 90km south of Colombo.
There, a series of Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim ceremonies were held to commemorate victims across the country.
Damayanthi Abeywardene, who was on the Colombo to Matara train in 2004 with her two daughters, then aged 16 and 19, was there to give thanks for their survival and remember those who were less fortunate.
“No one should have to see what we saw. The struggle of people trying to stay alive... The hundreds of corpses,” the retired school teacher said, breaking down mid-speech.
Abeywardene recently published a book about her harrowing escape, but said she and her daughters had never discussed their ordeal in the past 10 years because it was too traumatic.
The tsunami first hit Sri Lanka’s southeastern coast, traveling across the island at a speed of about 500km an hour and killing 31,000 people.
Sri Lanka had not been hit by a tsunami in living memory before 2004 and the tragedy became the country’s worst natural disaster.
Remembrance services were held across Sri Lanka yesterday, while the government marked National Safety Day in the southern town of Hambantota where about 4,000 people died.
Karunatilleke blames the huge loss of life on a lack of knowledge about tsunamis.
He says a smaller wave that brought the train to an abrupt halt shortly before the tsunami hit could have acted as a warning to people to flee to higher ground.
He overruled the signaling system after the first wave and ordered the driver to move, but by then it was too late.
When the tsunami hit, he became trapped inside a compartment that was floating in the water, managing to escape through a window.
“We had about 15 minutes to move the passengers to safety. I could have done it. We had the time, but not the knowledge,” Karunatilleke said.
Shanthi Gallage was also among the few who survived the train tragedy, but her daughter, then 13, is still listed as missing.
“I think my husband died, but my daughter is still alive somewhere,” the 55-year-old told reporters on board the Ocean Queen. “I will find her some day.”
The memories of that day still haunt Karunatilleke, who stops at the exact same spot every year on Dec. 26 to pay his respects to his departed passengers.
He recalls rescuing a small girl and boy from the floodwaters and placing them inside a train compartment, only to see it smashed minutes later.
“I will remember those two children for the rest of my life” he said. “I did not know about tsunamis then and neither did anyone else on board. I wish I had known.”
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