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| Saturday, 01 January 2005 |
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by Arjuna Wickramasinghe For over 30 years, the Nilaveli Beach Resort, built on a pristine stretch of sun-drenched beach on Sri Lanka's eastern shore, was the only luxury hotel in this sparsely populated fishing village. The 83-room resort operated during the "bad times", when the army launched sporadic attacks on nearby LTTE hideouts at the height of a two-decade old war. Miraculously, it never suffered damaged in the crossfire. While many hotels went bankrupt, the Nilaveli resort maintained an average occupancy rate of 72 percent. On many days the hotel gave rooms to the military to run an emergency field hospital that cared for soldiers injured in battle. But what a war that claimed over 64,000 lives failed to destroy was swallowed up by the very surf that many visitors came here to enjoy. Mahesh Gunatilake, a marketing manager from Colombo, had come here many times, but this year he decided to spend Christmas in Nilaveli with his wife and 10-year old son. On Sunday morning they took a boat ride to Pigeon Island, around 400 metres from shore. Just a few minutes later, the family watched in horror as a towering 10-metre (30-ft) wave crashed in to their hotel. "For a few minutes I was frozen with shock," he said. "My wife forgot that our kid was with us and fainted." "I had to carry her in one arm and drag my son to higher ground, as the entire island was flooded soon after," he added. Mahesh and his family waited on Pigeon Island for more than four hours until they were rescued by an Air Force helicopter. "I don't think I have ever prayed to God the way I did on that day," he said, still rattled. His wife, who almost drowned, remains in a coma in hospital. More than 300 people were staying at the Nilaveli Resort when the tsunami struck, and 15 of them - including eight unidentified foreign guests - drowned. Around 100 others are still missing. Guests' vehicles were swept into ground-floor rooms while hotel furniture was found on the roadside 1 km away "It's a real shame, this was one of the last unspoilt stretches of beach in the country. The place was so tranquil," said Neville Paul, the resort's manager, visibly moved. (Reuters) |
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