January 1 2005. Pete travels south to Galle 5 days after the Tsunami, delivering aid.

Journey through Hell and Hope 28,000 dead, 4,500 Missing

After having the shock of the tsunami tragedy wear off a little I was able to call a meeting of the Trade Union partners from the Colombo area including Public Sector workers, Nurses, Garment workers, and members of the Trade Union Womens Forum, a cross section of Women Union leaders from around Sri Lanka representing many industries. Everyone had the same despair and yet desire to do something. US AID was scrambling to coordinate it’s own organization, the UN, Save the Children and many others were in motion. The US Embassy had a “skeleton crew” due to staff leaving for the Christmas holiday. I could barely get a returned phone call or email, understandable in the situation. The Solidarity Center is not a “relief” organization and not part of the loop on such issues. After meeting with Union and NGO leaders in our office we mapped out a plan to assess the situation by region and visit areas where members have requested help. All of us realize that there must be plan for the long term as well as the next few weeks. We decided to use the emergency funding the Solidarity Center in Washington DC released to have Union leaders go to Jaffna, Batticoloa, Trincomalee and Galle, in order to see what we can do and what could be provided to stranded and suffering members. As we made plans, checked flights and availability of rental vans and other details the Public Nurses Union wanted a word with me separately. These strong leaders basically cornered me in the office and made it clear they wanted to do something now. Doctors and Nurses were needed in Galle and the southern beaches along with medication. They would not leave until I agreed. I met with them for several hours and we came up with a plan to get up early on the morning of Saturday, January 1st at 5 am and take off in two rented vans loaded with medical supplies, 10 Nurses, Doctors and some food items. I wanted to ride along to observe for myself and have on the ground information to see if our 1,000 dollars was going to be spent effectively.
We left with high spirits in the dark of the Colombo morning with rain coming down. You really could not see damage until arriving on the outskirts of Colombo, when passing the Moratuwa area with many shacks near the waters edge. Debris was stacked on both sides of the road, shops damaged, trash everywhere and piled up wood from busted houses and structures, but not extreme devastation. Then as we approached Bentota things started looking uglier, the damage was more severe and you could see where water had rushed over structures, the road and way up to the other side.

People were shoveling dirt and sand out of the way and cleaning up as we motored past. Then it began to get much worse. Close to Balapitiya we started to see entire buildings collapsed, destroyed, and pushed to the other side of the road from the force of the waves. Walls were crumbled and pieces of peoples lives, clothes, furniture and tables were pushed up the side of trees and buildings. We made our first stop at the Balapitiya Hospital. We went inside and the Nurses checked on the supplies of the Hospital and we walked through the ward looking over conditions, meeting patients etc. This Hospital had lost over 21 Doctors and Nurses due to the waves. They only needed a few supplies due to the Hospital being half empty. Even severely injured patients went home or to relatives houses on higher ground terrified to stay in the Hospital so close to the water due to their recent experience. This, of course, puts them even at more risk of wound infection or complications. We met a Nurse from Oakland, California who was a tourist, but was now helping in the hospital. I took his name to pass on to the US Embassy so that they (and his US family) would know he was ok.

We left the Hospital and made our way towards the harder hit area of Ambalangoda. We turned a corner and there it was, a fishing vessel over 90 feet long in the road. Many others were floating upside down or lay on their side or were upended on the road. Some smaller craft was pushed into the trees on the other side of the road. It looked like a strange traffic jam of boats on land.
We weaved passed observing high stacks of debris and sand on both sides of the road. People digging through the rubble, or just sitting with long sad faces at us we drove past. Then I noticed the smell. Sewage, stank water, dead fish and the sickly sweet smell of corpses. Many buried in the rubble, now in the 3rd or 4th day of decay. No way of removing them until much more clean up is done. For the rest of the 16 hours I was in the area I would smell this scent of death. Windows down, air conditioner on. It did not matter. We passed twisted railroad track, jagged lengths sticking in the sky from being ripped in half. Mud, bricks, clothing, wood, chairs, debris scattered everywhere. It looked like old reels from tv I used to see of bombed out towns during World War II. All of us are solemn and silent as we ride on towards Galle.

Our next stop, after taking back roads for a while is a grade school turned into a clinic and water station. The nurses look over injured people, check in with young mothers and babies, then make sure the doctors running the clinic have all the supplies they need. One woman had three-week-old baby in her arms, no husband left, no home. I wander over and take a picture of 3 beautiful 10 year old Sri Lankan girls, some injured, sitting in a circle playing together. They give me a big smile. The human spirit does persevere even in these circumstances. Many of the clinics and water centers have been set up in the farmland a several miles from the coast. As we drive past the green lush farms you don’t even know a tragedy has occurred until you pull up the driveway of the school or temple and people rush the van desperate for food, clothing, anything you can offer. We arrive in Galle and the damage we see is staggering. We see a crowd standing on the bank looking at a muddy lagoon opposite the seaside and stop. They tell us that there is an un-recovered bus in the lagoon full of bodies. Men in a small fishing boat make futile efforts to get into the bus by window using poles. Relatives of victims cry on the dirty shore. Two more buses are buried by sand nearby. Pole sticks mark the spot that they have dug down to find the side of the bus. There is no heavy equipment in site to help pull out the vehicles. Locals estimate there are probably several hundred dead and all still in the 3 vehicles.

Next stop we visit a temple outside Galle where we heard there was a team of Doctors giving inoculations for tetanus etc., and treating the injured. Many of the Buddhist temples became community shelters. We pull in and once again drop some supplies and give out clothing and a few bags of powdered milk. We find a shady spot off Galle road and eat our simple lunch of rice and fish curry out of newspaper lunch packets and sip lukewarm tea. We are hungry, yet cannot bear to eat in front of those that have nothing. I feel guilty for eating such a simple but filling lunch. We make several stops to ask about people as some of the nurses have missing relatives and friends. The town of Galle is utterly destroyed. People are sitting on piles of rubble that you cannot even make out what it used to be. Buses are rolled over in fields, cars are wedged between buildings. We see a crowd near the Galle Fort area and pull in. I remember being on holiday here, riding my bike on the fort and looking over the beautiful Sri Lanka coast at sunset months earlier. A man tells us that they found more bodies and people are coming by trying to ID them. Two of the nurses want to check to see if they know them. I escort them. The smell is overpowering . Soldiers have the bloated decomposing bodies arranged like a macabre line up in a police station. They are picking them up using tarps and throwing them in a wagon to be hauled off for burial. I see the corpse of five to eight month old baby. I fight the urge to be sick. We continue to distribute medicine and food to mainly mothers with babies we meet. Many stand by Galle road shouting and holding out their hands yelling, “help, please” as we pass by. After we pass out all the supplies we have, a friend of one of the nurses offers to take us to see “the train”. This is a train that was shown in many press clips, not sure how many cars it had, but over 2,000 people were on it when it was rammed by the wave and shoved almost a half a mile inland. Several cars are still missing. We decide to go as some of the nurses want information on who was found on the train and look over personal items recovered. One of our nurses was from a nearby village. We get out of the van and approach the wreckage that is strewn for it looks like a half of mile. It makes me shudder. Railroad passenger cars are separated by hundreds of feet, mangled or completely intact. As we walk into the jungle passing black oiled water, stepping around entire train car wheel sets, shoes, a toothbrush, baseball caps, stuffed animals, I spot the locomotive engine. It is on its side 50 yards from the nearest passenger car. The air is heavy with the feel of death and smell is overpowering. We wear surgical masks so we can bear the odor. People are weeping and digging through found backpacks and suitcases. Looking for clues and ID of loved ones. Mangled limbs of dead bodies stick out from underneath one of the cars sitting in a pool of black water. Flies buzz all around us. The cars are scattered, unconnected, upside down, on their side, in the jungle. The tracks were near the ocean. How can this be? We walk back to the road on the mangled track. Sobbing and crying surround us. I find it hard to keep from breaking down in front of all of them…we leave for Colombo as dark approaches.

Women and children just sitting by the darkness of the road. No sleeping mat, no power, no way to cook or bathe their babies. It is a very silent 3 hour trip back to Colombo. We decide to meet Monday and figure out what we must and can do. Even with Aid coming in, there cannot be enough too soon. We discuss converting Union halls into relief/medical clinics. We know we must do something. We stop at a large Catholic church on the way back so nurses could pray, and also offerings are made at the Large Kandasamy Kovil Buddhist Temple we pass. I just wanted to go home and take the longest shower in my life and hug my 4 month-old baby girl… It strikes me that the situation is so desperate, and yet this is the location getting the majority of relief and it’s EASY to get to! God help people in the difficult to reach and rural parts of the island coast. We are taking it one day at a time, but are making plans for action and feel that even if we help only hundreds it is worth the effort. I know our Union brothers and Sisters in America will respond with help. Everyone and every organization is funding and doing relief action….we must……..

Pete D. Castelli III

January 2, 2005