It was on 26th December 2004 that an earthquake in the Indian Ocean led to the catastrophic tsunami that hit the region with the loss of at least 30,000 lives in Sri Lanka alone.
As a lifelong railway enthusiast it has always saddened me that this island was the location for the worst railway disaster in world history, directly attributable to the tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004.
Today, we were able to visit the site of the disaster and see the lasting memorial to the events of that day.
There is also a museum on the site of the disaster. The museum includesone of the carriages involved which was recovered after the train was swept away.
The train involved was a ‘Matala Express’ service linking Colombo with Galle and Matara. It was, as always, a crowded train and was near the village of Peraliya when it was halted and flooded by the tsunami’s first wave. In the chaos, many passengers, together with some locals, climbed on to the carriage roofs, believing it to be the safest option. This proved to be far from the case as the second wave struck ‘like a wall of water’. The confirmed death toll is put at over 1,700 although more likely to have been 2,000 plus.
The ‘wall’ of water that engulfed the train was around the height of the buddha statue which has been erected as a permanent reminder of that devastating day.
2 J's World of Adventure 