Tsunami Video Shows Chaos, Theft

The day after the tsunami, I traveled with my family from Weligama to the nearby town of Galle. More than 200 people had been killed at the bus station alone, a scene I described in an article I wrote for the Post that evening.

View Enlarged Photo and CaptionAt the time, I didn't know that a Sri Lankan cameraman had recorded extensive video footage of the tsunami hitting the bus station. It's an extraordinary document: one man's view of the chaotic events unfolding around him as disaster struck. The entire video is about an hour long.

With the cameraman's permission, we are posting excerpts -- some of which contain graphic content -- here to give you a better sense of what happened.

Among other scenes, the video shows a mighty river of water enveloping the bus station and children desperately hanging onto a bus stand before being washed away. It also documents the start of what turned into several hours of frenzied looting in Galle, as a pair of youths fight over a gold necklace they have ripped from the corpse of a young woman.

When the tsunami hit, Agantha Samarawickrama was in his video store on the third floor of a building overlooking the bus station. Someone shouted that a water pipe had burst and the streets were full of water. Agantha grabbed a video camera and rushed to the balcony adjoining his store. He shot a few seconds of footage, but was so shocked by what he saw that he dropped the camera into the water. It was quickly swept away. He ran back to his store for a second camera.

By now, he understood this was not just a burst water main.

"It was so sad," recalls Agantha, 40. "I am a good swimmer, but I realized there was nothing I could do to help the people, so I just kept filming."

After the waters receded, Agantha jumped onto his motorcycle and drove inland, reaching the capital Colombo by a very circuitous route. He sold his material to a Sri Lankan news agency for $250 and extracts were shown around the world as the first extensive video footage of the tsunami.

There was at least one happy outcome from the video. The police were able to use the video to arrest the youths who stole the necklace from the young woman. When you look at the extracts posted here, you will see the robbers arguing with one another and pushing the woman's lifeless body back into the water. To spot the actual moment of theft, the police used blown-up still photographs of individual frames.

-- Michael Dobbs

By washingtonpost.com |  March 2, 2005; 5:00 AM ET  | Category:  Michael Dobbs
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