Tidal Waves kill Thousands of people in Asia

[Guest BlackJesus]

[color="blue"][b]Holy Shit..... 11,000 dead from string of tidal waves. Reminds me of the movie Day After Tomorrow. I guess those few hurricanes I had this summer weren't that bad afterall.The stories of snorkelers caught by suprise and dragged across the bottom of the ocean and throw ashore is crazy. Also it seems that the Earths rotation was affected and the earthquake vibrated the entire planet.[/b][/color]



[u][b]Massive Quake, Tsunamis Kill Thousands in South Asia

More Than 11,000 Dead in Seven Countries as Tidal Waves Slam Coasts
By DILIP GANGULY, AP[/b][/u]


COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Dec. 26) - An earthquake of epic power struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean on Sunday, unleashing 20-foot walls of water that came crashing down on beaches in seven Asian countries across thousands of miles, smashing seaside resorts and villages and leaving more than 11,000 dead in their wake.

The death toll along the southern coast of Asia - and as far west as Somalia, on the African coast, where nine people were reported lost - was certain to increase, as authorities sorted out a far-flung disaster caused by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, strongest in 40 years and fourth-largest in a century.


WHAT HAPPENED?
Thousands of people were killed by tsunami waves in southern Asia Sunday.

WHY?
The waves were caused by an 8.9-magnitude quake, the largest recorded in 40 years.

ABOUT TSUNAMIS:
These tidal waves are set off by undersea earthquakes, landslides or volcanos.
HOW THEY WERE NAMED:
A combination of the Japanese terms for harbor and wave.


The earthquake hit at 6:58 a.m.; the tsunami came as much as 2 1/2 hours later, without warning, on a morning of crystal blue skies. Sunbathers and snorkelers, cars and cottages, fishing boats and even a lighthouse were swept away.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India each reported thousands dead, and Thailand, a Western tourist hotspot, said hundreds were dead and thousands missing.

''It's an extraordinary calamity of such colossal proportions that the damage has been unprecedented,'' said Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa of India's Tamil Nadu, a southern state which reported 1,705 dead, many of them strewn along beaches, virtual open-air mortuaries.

''It all seems to have happened in the space of 20 minutes. A massive tidal wave of extreme ferocity ... smashed everything in sight to smithereens,'' she said.

At least three Americans were among the dead - two in Sri Lanka and one in Thailand, according to State Department spokesman Noel Clay. He said a number of other Americans were injured, but he had no details.

''We're working out on ways to help. The United States will be very responsible,'' Clay said.

The quake was centered 155 miles south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province on Sumatra, and six miles under the Indian Ocean's seabed. The temblor leveled dozens of buildings on Sumatra - and was followed by at least a half-dozen powerful aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from almost 6 to 7.3. The waves that followed the first massive jolt were far more lethal.

An Associated Press reporter in Aceh province saw bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded. More bodies littered the beaches. Authorities said at least 4,185 were dead in Indonesia; the full impact of the disaster was not known, as communications were cut to the towns most affected.

The waves barreled across the Bay of Bengal, pummeling Sri Lanka, where more than 4,500 were reported killed - at least 3,000 in areas controlled by the government and about 1,500 in regions controlled by rebels, who listed the death toll on their Web site. Some 170 children were feared lost in an orphanage. More than a million people were displaced from wrecked villages.

The carnage was mindboggingly widespread. About 2,300 were reported dead along the southern coasts of India, at least 289 in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia and 32 in the Maldives, a string of coral islands off the southwestern coast of India. At least two died in Bangladesh - children who drowned as a boat with about 15 tourists capsized in high waves.

The huge waves struck around breakfast time on the beaches of Thailand's beach resorts - probably Asia's most popular holiday destination at this time of year, particularly for Europeans fleeing the winter cold.

''People that were snorkeling were dragged along the coral and washed up on the beach, and people that were sunbathing got washed into the sea,'' said Simon Clark, 29, a photographer from London vacationing on Ngai island.

In India's Andhra Pradesh state, 32 people were drowned when they went into the sea for a Hindu religious ceremony to mark the full moon. Among them were 15 children.

''I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flying on the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if made of paper,'' said P. Ramanamurthy, 40, of that state.

The earthquake that caused the tsunami was the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1964, according to geophysicist Julie Martinez of the U.S. Geological Survey.

''All the planet is vibrating'' from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation.

The quake occurred at a place where several huge geological plates push against each other with massive force. The survey said a 620-mile section along the boundary of the plates shifted, motion that triggered the sudden displacement of a huge volume of water.

Scientists said the death toll might have been reduced if India and Sri Lanka had been part of an international warning system designed to advise coastal communities that a potentially killer wave was approaching. Although Thailand is part of the system, the west coast of its southern peninsula does not have the system's wave sensors mounted on ocean buoys.

As it was, there was no warning. Gemunu Amarasinghe, an AP photographer in Sri Lanka, said he saw young boys rushing to catch fish that had been scattered on the beach by the first wave.

''But soon afterward, the devastating second series of waves came,'' he said. He climbed onto the roof of his car, but ''In a few minutes my jeep was under water. The roof collapsed.

''I joined masses of people in escaping to high land. Some carried their dead and injured loved ones. Some of the dead were eventually placed at roadside, and covered with sarongs. Others walked past dazed, asking if anyone had seen their family members.''

Michael Dobbs, a reporter for The Washington Post, was swimming around a tiny island off a Sri Lankan beach at about 9:15 a.m. when his brother called out that something strange was happening with the sea.

Then, within minutes, ''the beach and the area behind it had become an inland sea, rushing over the road and pouring into the flimsy houses on the other side. The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible - a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before,'' he wrote on the Post's Web site.

Dodds weathered the wave, but then found himself struggling to keep from being swept away when the floodwaters receded.

On Phuket, in Thailand, Somboon Wangnaitham, deputy director of the Wachira Hospital, said one of the worst-hit areas was Patong beach, where at least 32 people died and 500 were injured. On Phi Phi island, where ''The Beach'' starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed, 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea.

''I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea and also my staff,'' said Chan Marongtaechar, owner of the PP Princess Resort and PP Charlie Beach Resort.

Many areas were without electricity. In Tamil Nadu in India, a unit of the Madras Atomic Power Station was shut down after water entered the plant. The Indian air force planned to drop diesel generators - along with packets of food and medicine - to ravaged areas.

Some 20,000 Sri Lankan soldiers were deployed in relief and rescue and to help police maintain law and order. The international airport was closed in the Maldives after a tidal wave that left 51 people missing in addition to the 32 dead.

Indonesia, a country of 17,000 islands, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the margins of tectonic plates that make up the so-called the ''Ring of Fire'' around the Pacific Ocean basin.

The Indonesian quake struck just three days after an 8.1 quake along the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica caused buildings to shake hundreds of miles away. The earlier temblor caused no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude 8 are very rare. A quake registering magnitude 8 rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that struck off Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[url="http://www.cnn.com/interactive/world/0412/gallery.asia.quake2/frameset.exclude.html"]http://www.cnn.com/interactive/world/0412/...et.exclude.html[/url]


[b]CNN has a great site for more info about the event if interested.[/b]

[Guest bengalrick]

i heard the numbers last night... 20,000 + and still counting... unbelievable...

[|Bunghole|]

That is sad, and unbelievable.
and hey...the website just changed!
Sorry-it happened right in front of me as I went to type.
The craziest thing is the lack of warning for a natural phenomenon like this...

[calibengalfan]

Even with the technology we have, we are unable to predict earthquakes. I've been told for the last 20 years that the "Big One" was going to hit anyday, and it hasn't happened. They know pressure is building up, and that it will happen, but no one knows when.

This really sucks for those people. I wonder if they were even expecting an earthquake at any time? At least here, we know it could happen anytime, it just happens so fast you can't really do anything.

What gets me, it was the tsunami that caused most of the fatalities and injuries. I've seen 20-30 foot waves before, and believe me, they're scary just to look at from a distance, but I never imagined them completely destroying everything in their path. Did they have any warning at all of the incoming wall of water, or what?

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='calibengalfan' date='Dec 27 2004, 09:04 PM']Even with the technology we have, we are unable to predict earthquakes. I've been told for the last 20 years that the "Big One" was going to hit anyday, and it hasn't happened. They know pressure is building up, and that it will happen, but no one knows when.

This really sucks for those people. I wonder if they were even expecting an earthquake at any time? At least here, we know it could happen anytime, it just happens so fast you can't really do anything.

What gets me, it was the tsunami that caused most of the fatalities and injuries. I've seen 20-30 foot waves before, and believe me, they're scary just to look at from a distance, but I never imagined them completely destroying everything in their path.[b] Did they have any warning at all of the incoming wall of water, or what?[/b]
[right][post="30622"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

unfortinately, we warned the countries that the waves were coming, but they didn't warn anyone... they didn't want to hurt their tourism for their beaches... they fucked up immensly... they have admitted they got the warning from us...

[Guest BlackJesus]

[b]The total dead has now jumped to 44,000

What the fuck ???[/b]




[u]Tsunami Death Toll Rises to 44,000
Major Relief Effort Under Way
By ANDI DJATMIKO, AP[/u]BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Dec. 28) - Mourners in Sri Lanka used their bare hands to dig graves Tuesday while hungry islanders in Indonesia turned to looting in the aftermath of Asia's devastating tsunamis. Thousands more bodies were found in Indonesia, dramatically increasing the death toll across 11 nations to around 44,000.

Emergency workers who reached Aceh province at the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island found that 10,000 people had been killed in a single town, Meulaboh, said Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry.

Another 9,000 were confirmed dead so far in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and surrounding towns, he said. Soldiers and volunteers combed seaside districts and dug into rubble of destroyed houses to seek survivors and retrieve the dead amid unconfirmed reports that other towns along Aceh's west coast had been demolished.

With aid not arriving quick enough, desperate residents in Meulaboh and other towns in Aceh - a region that was unique in that it was struck both by Sunday's massive quake and the killer waves that followed - were turning to looting.

"It is every person for themselves here," district official Tengku Zulkarnain told el-Shinta radio station from the area.

"People are looting, but not because they are evil, but they are hungry," said Red Cross official Irman Rachmat in Banda Aceh.


In Sri Lanka, the toll also mounted significantly. Around 1,000 people were dead or missing and feared dead from a train that was flung off its tracks when the gigantic waves hit. Rescuers pulled 204 bodies from the train's eight carriages - reduced to twisted metal - and cremated or buried them Tuesday next to the railroad track that runs along the coastline.

More than 18,700 people died in Sri Lanka, more than 4,000 in India and more than 1,500 in Thailand, with numbers expected to rise. The Indonesian vice president's estimate that his country's coastlines held up to 25,000 victims would bring the potential toll up to 50,000.

Europeans desperately sought relatives missing from holidays in Southeast Asia - particularly Thailand, where bodies littered the once crowded beach resorts. Near the devastated Similan Beach and Spa Resort, where mostly German tourists were staying, a naked corpse hung suspended from a tree Tuesday as if crucified.

A blond two-year-old Swedish boy, Hannes Bergstroem, found sitting alone on a road in Thailand and taken to a hospital was reunited with his uncle, who saw the boy's picture on the hospital's Web site.


"This is a miracle, the biggest thing that could happen," said the uncle, who identified himself as Jim.

So far, more than 80 Westerners have been confirmed dead across the region - including 11 Americans. But a British consulate official in Thailand warned that hundreds more foreign tourists were likely killed in the country's resorts.

In Sri Lanka, more than 300 people crammed into the Infant Jesus Church at Orrs Hill, located on high ground from their ravaged fishing villages. Families and childres slept on pews and the cement floor.

"We had never seen the sea looking like that. It was like as if a calm sea had suddenly become a raging monster," said one woman, Haalima, recalling the giant wave that swept away her 5-year-old grandson, Adil.

Adil was making sandcastles with his younger sister, Reeze, while Haalima sat in her home Sunday morning. Haalima said the girl ran to her complaining that waves had crushed their castles, then came screams and water entered the home. "When we looked, there was no shore anymore and no Adil," she said.

In Sri Lanka's severely hit town of Galle, officials mounted a loudspeaker on a fire engine to advise residents to lay bodies of the dead on roads for collection and burial. Elsewhere in Sri Lanka, residents took on burial efforts with forks or even bare hands to scrape a final resting place for victims.

The tidal waves and flooding uprooted land mines in war-torn Sri Lanka, threatening to kill or maim aid workers and survivors who are attempting to return to what's left of their homes.

Amid the devastation, however, were some miraculous stories of survival.

In Malaysia, a 20-day-old baby was found alive on a floating mattress. She and her family were later reunited. A Hong Kong couple vacationing in Thailand clung to a mattress for six hours.

The disaster could be history's costliest, with "many billions of dollars" of damage, said U.N. Undersecretary Jan Egeland, who is in charge of emergency relief coordination.

Hundreds of thousands have lost everything, and millions face a hazardous future because of polluted drinking water, a lack of sanitation and no health services, he said.


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Scores of people were also killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives. The tidal waves traveled as far as Somalia, where hundreds were reported dead, and Seychelles, where three were killed.

Children have emerged as the biggest victims of Sunday's quake-born tidal waves. The U.N. organization estimates at least one-third of the tens of thousands who died were children, said UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside in New York.

Officials in Thailand and Indonesia conceded that immediate public warnings of gigantic waves could have saved lives. The only known warning issued by Thai authorities reached resort operators when it was too late. The waves hit Sri Lanka and India more than two hours after the quake.

But governments insisted they couldn't have known the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and they could not afford the sophisticated equipment to build one.

For most people around the shores across the region, the only warning Sunday of the disaster came when shallow coastal waters disappeared, sucked away by the approaching tsunami, before returning as a massive wall of water. The waves wiped out villages, lifted cars and boats, yanked children from the arms of parents and swept away beachgoers, scuba divers and fishermen.

The United States dispatched disaster teams and prepared a $15 million aid package to the Asian countries, and the 25-nation European Union promised to deliver $4 million. Japan, Portugal, China and Russia were sending teams of experts.

Egeland said he expected hundreds of relief airplanes from two dozen countries within the next 48 hours.

[Jamie_B]

Does anyone know if this is the biggest death toll for a natural disastar? It seems like it might be....Scarry, I cant even imagine of what it would have been like being in the middle of this.

[|Bunghole|]

I feel bad for all those drowned children...

[KingStripes]

Very Sad.
Imagine if that quake had hit land.
It would have just destroyed an entire piece of land.

Impressive stuff though. Made the entire planet shake, even if people could not feel it.

[KingStripes]

By the way, news says that the energy released by the quake was equivalent to that of 33 atomic bombs. Now that causes big waves!!

[BengalBeotch]

what a tragedy....
I could not imagine the pain
of losing my child...much less
thousands of children...
that is just so sad.

[BengalsCat]

Yeah this was a huge tradedy... I mean u cant even express it. Honestly the death total was at 55000 last time i looked. Thats unfathomanable the amount of people lost to this... fuckin crazy

[Guest bengalrick]

the force was so big, we will actually have to redo some parts of the globe (map) some pieces of land moved like 40 feet...

they are also saying that disease will kill as many as the waves... they are just leaving the dead bodies in the road, w/ no refrigeration... there is no water, no food, no shelter... this is truely a travesty...

they are looking at over 100,000 dead after its all said and done...

[BengalBeotch]

Holy crap....the numbers just
keep going up....if you think about
it.....that's the amount of people
for a sell out at Paul Brown Stadium....
I can picture the stadium and all
the people in my head and it's
insane to think that many people
have been killed.

[Guest oldschooler]

The number of deaths is over 63,000 now !

They are saying that diseases will probably end up killing
even more and the numbers will probably double !



That is sad, amazing and pathetic all rolled into 1.

[BuckWoody]

[url="http://jlgolson.blogspot.com/2004/12/tsunami-video.html"]Click here for some amazing videos.[/url] I looked them over last night...absolutely hard to believe.

Our thoughts and prayers are with with all the folks in SE Asia who were affected.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[b]Death toll now at 80,000 and rising they believe it could exceed 250,000 once disease sets in. Below article about how it shook the earth.[/b]



[u]Scientists: Quake may have made Earth wobble
Wednesday, December 29, 2004 [/u]



Scientists believe that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said Tuesday.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or one millionth of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross said.

Gross said changes predicted by his model probably are too minuscule to be detected by a global positioning satellite network that routinely measures changes in Earth's spin, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble.

The Earth's poles travel a circular path that normally varies by about 33 feet , so an added wobble of an inch is unlikely to cause long-term effects, he said.

"That continual motion is just used to changing," Gross said. "The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation."

When those tiny variations accumulate, planetary scientists must add a "leap second" to the end of a year, something that has not been done in many years, Gross said.

Scientists have long theorized that changes on the Earth's surface such as tide and groundwater shifts and weather could affect its spin but they have not had precise measurements to prove it, Caltech seismologist Hiroo Kanamori said.

"Even for a very large event, the effect is very small," Kanamori said. "It's very difficult to change the rotation rate substantially."

[hiyall69]

Sad event. Just sad.

[Jamie_B]

I just made a donation to the Red Cross to help out. If anyone else wants to make one you can do so at this link.

[url="https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp"]https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp[/url]

Choose International Response Fund to make sure it goes to this issue.

[BengalsCat]

SHIT COUNT AT 100,000 this is so so sad

[bclion]

The death toll just keeps going up and to think that so many countries across multiple continents are affected - tragic.

I witnessed a small Tsunami while stationed in Diego Garcia (small island 37 miles tip to tip - Archeplago in the Indian Ocean) in November, 1983. Diego Garcia was not impacted by this one. The one in 1983 was Tectonic in nature and was 7.6 on the Richter about 145 miles west of us. There was a small Tsunami that flooded some of our communication facilities, we lost power, but we were indeed lucky as we were a mere 10 feet above sea level.

There was another one in Adak, Alaska about a month before I reported there. It took telephone poles and threw them around like match sticks.

Nothing that any of us have seen is anything near this the scale of this.

The stories will keep coming out, the one lady from Australia who had to make a Sopie's Choice between her 5 year old and her 2 year old was tough. Luckily, the 5 year old made it.

This is the most sad event that I believe that I've seen in my lifetime. A story today mentioned animals and the guest said that animals, particularly wild animals left for highrer ground indicating that they sensed the changes in the climate, atmosphere, something.

What is the story, did officials know about this? I know that in 1983, there was no warning. They said that it was tectonic in nature, not volcanic and that it could be another 500 years before another one like it. Two days later, we received an aftershock present of 6.4 on the Richter.

Sad, sad.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]A story today mentioned animals and the guest said that animals, particularly wild animals left for highrer ground indicating that they sensed the changes in the climate, atmosphere, something.[/quote]


[b]It is strange isn't it... for as dumb as most of us think aniumals are (myself included) they seem to have another sense of danger that humans lack.

As for the event, the death toll is now like 120,000 nd will still double most likely. As for the saddest event in my lifetime I would have to say the genocide in Rwanda where 800,000 people were macheted to death, (I actually lived in Tanzania for a time after and got to hear the stories personally) but this event is definetly number 2.

Hopefully the aid can get their soon, I also made a donation to help out[/b]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[img]http://www.cagle.com/news/Tsunami/images/hajjaj27a%20copy.jpg[/img]



[img]http://www.cagle.com/news/Tsunami/images/davies2.gif[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[color="blue"][b]If there is a God ....He is apparently an Asshole ....

Has to be the worst story I've heard in a long time[/b][/color]



[u]Tsunami a horror for paralyzed children
Shelter director describes 'water coming faster than a speeding car'
Saturday, January 1, 2005

[/u]

GALLE, Sri Lanka (AP) -- Screaming with fear, paralyzed children at a shelter for the physically disabled and mentally ill in Galle, Sri Lanka, lay helplessly in their beds as seawater surged around them.

The tsunami roared in on the day after Christmas. Some of the desperate children gripped the rafters as the water rose inside the one-story Sambodhi shelter. Others floated away on mattresses to their deaths, according to witnesses. Just 41 of the 102 residents of the home survived, caretaker Kumar Deshapriya said Saturday.

The southern city of Galle, where thousands died in the massive destruction wrought by the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami, is full of tragic stories that echo the immense loss of communities elsewhere in Sri Lanka, as well as in Indonesia, Thailand and other nations.

The tale of the Sambodhi shelter, once home to deaf and blind children as well as disabled elderly people, is one of the most poignant in Galle.

Deshapriya, who is himself confined to a wheelchair because he has muscular dystrophy, said it began after he returned from placing orders for fish, grain and vegetables at the market.

Back at Sambodhi, he heard a commotion outside and went to look.

"Once I got to the road, I saw that something strange was happening," Deshapriya said. "I saw people running, shouting, screaming: 'The sea is coming inland.' Then I saw the sea, and it was not the same as before. It looked dark, black in color."

"The water was coming down the road, twisting around. It's hard to describe. It was coming faster than a speeding car," said Deshapriya, who came to the shelter at the age of nine for care and became caretaker nine months ago.

Pandemonium broke out in the shelter, which includes several courtyards connected by pillar-lined walkways, along with arched doorways leading into rooms with fans and mosquito nets slung near the high ceilings.

According to Deshapriya, children screamed and many didn't appear to understand when one of the 11 workers at the shelter climbed onto the roof of a car and shouted: "Those who are able-bodied, come out immediately."

One sick child didn't comprehend that his life was in danger, and started laughing.

"He was very joyful, seeing the water coming in. He was pointing it out to the other kids. He seemed very happy," said Deshapriya, who escaped when a shelter resident pushed his wheelchair, running to higher ground.

The same resident, a young man who stared dully at the ground, stood by on Saturday as the 26-year-old caretaker took stock of the damage.

The wall surrounding the shelter had collapsed. Moldy mattresses and their soaked, wooden or rusting iron frames, as well as overturned, sand-encrusted wheelchairs, were scattered in the bedrooms.

Children's' toys -- a stuffed purple dinosaur, a bunny rabbit -- were lined up on a night table. Spoons sat in moldy plates of rice and curry on tables, a sign of how suddenly disaster had struck.

Wearing surgical masks and pink rubber gloves, volunteers from Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, removed debris from the damp, muddy complex. The smell of decomposing bodies was strong.

The team found a worm-ridden body Saturday in the kitchen, and waited most of the afternoon for authorities to come and pick it up.

Shelter employee Saroja Senivirathna was happy that Deshapriya had managed to escape.

She said she and a few others climbed onto the roof of tiles atop sheets of corrugated iron to escape the waves, but the cries of trapped children below was so unbearable that they descended to try to save as many as they could.

I saw people running, shouting, screaming: 'The sea is coming inland.' Then I saw the sea, and it was not the same as before. It looked dark, black in color.
-- Kumar Deshapriya

"While I was on the roof, I thought the whole place was going to collapse," Senivirathna said. "While these children were screaming, I decided it would be better to all die together rather than save my life alone. That's why I got down."

But even then, she had to make a hard choice, abandoning completely disabled children so she could help ones who had some ability to move.

Some kids floated away, while others survived by clinging to tree limbs, though they were temporarily stuck high up in the trees when the water level subsided.

The youngest shelter resident, an 11-year-old girl who was abandoned on the roadside by her parents, survived. A ward for the most incapacitated patients was in the front of the building, and the bodies of many of its occupants were found in quarters at the back.

The survivors are staying at Buddhist temples and other temporary housing for victims of the catastrophe. Deshapriya was determined to rebuild the shelter, which has received donations and funding over the years from Mormons in the United States, a Dutch charity, Galle municipal authorities and Sri Lankan air force veterans.

"I will open up as soon as possible," said Deshapriya, who hopes to move back into the shelter on January 10. "We have nowhere else to go."