These are photographs taken between January 8th and February 4th 2005
when I was back in Kosgoda, Sri Lanka to repair and rebuild after the
tsunami. Click on the small images to see a higher resolution version
(1024x681).
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This is the water tower that we leapt up to escape the tsunami.
You can see a "tide mark" on the staff toilet block on the left
which shows the average height of the water (about 8 feet).
That may not sound like much but it was very fast moving water!
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A view from the top of the water tower. The salt water of the
tsunami killed all the grass and many smaller plants and bushes.
In this shot, you can see three 5000 litre water tanks that were
washed away by the wave (but subsequently recovered). They are
shown here under the "garage" where lorries and cars were parked.
This structure was bent and damaged by being hit by vehicles washed
along in the water.
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This is a view from the back of our factory land towards the water
tower. The rubble you can see are the remains of the 7 foot border
wall.
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It's just a lowly pump, used to extract water from our 18 metre deep
tube well. However, it was stolen twice by thieves coming in the night
and sawing through the pipes. Sadly, this disaster brought out the worst
in many people (and nicking our pump was nothing compared to some of
the looting and robbing that went on).
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The front wall being rebuilt. The group of people in the middle distance
on the left are our factory employees, whose income depends on the factory
being restored into operation. The house on the right belongs to my
father-in-law.
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It's quite amazing how much clearing up was required. This picture was
taken in my father-in-law's back garden and shows how much debris was
left lying around.
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On the beach front there used to be Kosgoda Turtle Sanctuary, where hatchlings
of endangered sea turtles could be reared and released into the wild. That
turtle hatchery has been completely obliterated (shown in a later pic). This
turtle shell was found in my father-in-law's garden, about 250 metres from
the hatchery.
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Another picture taken from my father-in-law's back garden, this time
looking across to the property behind the little hardware store next
door. Everyone is picking through the pieces trying to put their lives
back together.
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Pumping water out of the pit where the water tanks used to reside. We
needed to rehouse the 3x5000l tanks.
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This picture was taken from the spot I was standing when the front wall
(under reconstruction in this image) was smashed in by the tsunami, as
described in my account of the days events. From here, we ran to the
water tower which is behind me and to my left.
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Repairing a vacuum packing machine. The tsunami forced salt water through
any buildings it didn't flatten, which of course caused considerable damage
to any electrical (and most mechanical) equipment. In this picture, Mr. Kam
Bolla (vacuum packing machine guru) is doing what he loves most, fettling
one of our machines (assisted by Priyantha in the background).
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