Sujith's Story

View Enlarged Photo and CaptionThis is the story of Sujith Nambukara. He is a fisherman with a lean face and slim, muscular body. Prior to the tsunami, his family shared a three-room house in Sathniwasapura with his parents and his brother's family. Each family occupied one room of the house. (I have edited the story to make it clearer, but the words are Sujith's.)

"My family moved to Sathniwasapura 21 years ago, when I was 5 years old, after our previous house was destroyed in a very severe monsoon. The government gave us some land and some money to build a new house. I have been fishing since I was 12 years old.

"The day of the tsunami was a poya, a full moon day (a special holiday for Buddhists). I didn't have any plans to go fishing that day, but I planned to work a little on my boat, cleaning the nets.

"I left the house soon after 9 o'clock. My wife, Roshan, was bathing our 6-month-old daughter, Hansik. As I left the house, she reminded me that we had to visit the temple. 'Be back soon,' she told me. I told her I would be right back, as soon as I'd finished my work on the nets.

"Soon after I got down to the boat, the water began to come in. The nets were floating on the water. Together with the other fishermen, I tried to secure the boats. There was a big banging noise, as the boats collided with each other. A lot of people came running out of their houses to see what was going on.

"The water came up to our knees, but then it stopped. I went off to catch my sister's small catamaran. After I tied it up, another, much bigger wave came, and we all ran away. I fell down and sprained my hand, but got up again and ran for my life.

"I found my father, waist-deep in water, in a ditch. I helped him out, saying 'run, run.' A 12-foot-high wave was following me. I tried to grab on to a concrete electricity pole, but I missed it. Instead, I climbed into a palm tree. I heard yelling and children shouting for help. I could see the whole neighborhood and my own house filled with water. I didn't know what was happening inside.

"When the wave began to go back out again, I tried to reach our house. There was still a lot of water in the village, which is below the level of the road. I couldn't reach the house the normal way. The sewage canal had become a river. So I went around the other side, along the wall, and found a way in through the back.

"I tried to reach my house by climbing up a tree and along the roofs of the houses. I rescued a woman from the first house by throwing a piece of rope to her from a tree. I then jumped from roof to roof to my house. But my family wasn't there anymore.

"The neighbors told me later what happened. When the wave came, Roshan grabbed Hansik and ran to the house of the fish salesman. Since it was impossible to escape, everybody tried to climb onto the roof of that house. It's the highest place in the village. They smashed a hole in the tiles and pushed people through it onto the roof.

"Roshan climbed onto a stool and then onto a cupboard. She was just reaching up to put Hansik through the hole, when a wave came and destroyed the wall next to her. Both my wife and child were swept away by the wave. They found them later in the market, three blocks away from here. Roshan was still holding Hansik in her arms.

"When I learned that my family had been washed away, I couldn't bear it. I just sat on a roof by myself and cried."

-- Michael Dobbs

By washingtonpost.com |  February 21, 2005; 5:00 AM ET  | Category:  Michael Dobbs , Sujith Nambukara
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