Chronology Of Ltte Terror - Part 14

From the Daily News Archives:

 

LTTE explodes bomb at Ceylon Cold Stores

Wijitha Nakkawita

-----------------------

When the euphoria of victory dies down, and together with it the media hype ceases, when the guns do not rattle and boom anymore, and the sky, the land and the sea become calm and serene, when tranquillity reigns through it is natural to live in the present moment and forget the past.

But one cannot live in the present without a past. Nor can one envision the future discarding the experience of the preceding events. Hence the Daily News is serialising the Chronicle of LTTE Terror taken from our own archives which would remind our readers how it all began.

An awareness of the chronology of terror would help us prevent the recurrence of such terror and frustrate any attempts by misguided elements to repeat history to suit their evil designs. It was not simple terror. Nor was terror sporadic. It was all pre-planned, pre-determined, well-calculated terror. The victims were innocent people. Though it is too many innumerate we would like to recall the major episodes in the Chronology of Terror.

---------------------

The month of May in Colombo usually is rainy yet the activities of the city, once known as the garden city of the orient still retained some of the nostalgic activities even as late as 1986 though some of these were enterprises started during the British colonial era.

One such industry the Elephant House, the main factory and offices of the Ceylon Cold Stores still stands adjoining the Beira lake as it did a century back. In that year business as usual was brisk and the main activity bottling and distributing aerated waters of the famous elephant brand to all parts of the country.

However that day May 29 was a very busy day and the workers had to stay at the machinery and work points longer during the lunch break that usually sees around 400 workers coming out for lunch almost at the same time.

Then as a few of them came out, some for lunch and several for other purposes a loud explosion rocked the building. A powerful bomb went off and parts of the roof collapsed, nine workers were killed immediately and pieces of their mutilated bodies were strewn all over. Among the others 18 were injured 10 critically.

The bomb had gone off in a lorry parked inside the premises. The vehicle had come carrying empty aerated water bottles from Vavuniya that morning but the driver and the cleaner both men from the North had gone missing after the lorry was parked in the premises.

Though only nine workers died and 19 injured it would have been a greater tragedy if the usual strength of 400 workers had come out for lunch. Ten times more than the number that died would have not lived if fate did not intervene to delay their arrival out during lunch time.

The government analyst and experts who had inspected the site of the blast had observed that the bomb at Elephant House was ten times more powerful than the one that was set on the SriLankan Airlines aircraft Tristar some weeks before that. However the terrorists would have succeeded in killing a larger number of civilians but luck had been with the people on that day except with the few that died or were injured.

On the same day however terrorists also exploded a land mine killing another 14 soldiers at Palatoppur on the Mutur-Seruvila road but there were others who were critically injured.

The victims were members of the newly formed 3rd battalion of the Ceylon Light Infantry and among the injured were also five civilians. The final count of deaths was 24 soldiers and five civilians.

The month of May 1986 was to become a very dangerous month with a large number of civilians and soldiers killed by the terrorists and the then Government of President J.R. Jayewardene was requesting India to get the terrorist groups in the North to restrain themselves. Yet the carnage had to go on with India unable to tie the dogs they had let loose much earlier become more fierce.

Those killed included Namasivayam, Tuan Rajdeen, Harry Leslie, P. Dayapala Peiris, Maithree Wickramasin, P.K.R. de Silva, D. Premadasa, Chandrasiri Sirinimal Wijewardena, L.A. Kumara, Merin Suriyarachchi, Z.M. Sumanadasa, P.L.A.P. Panagoda, Selvin Fernando, H.M. Mettananda, Udeni Maliyatissa.

Victims mutilated beyond recognition:

Terrorist blast kills nine at Cold Stores

Sightseers hamper rescue work:

By Amal Jayasinghe and Sarath Malalasekera

Nine workers were killed and several more injured when a bomb rocked the Ceylon Cold Stores warehouse at Slave Island yesterday afternoon.

First reports suggested

that the explosive device came to the facility in a truck carrying empty bottles form Vavuniya. Police said the vehicle was blown up while men were unloading it.

Two trucks parked nearby were also badly damaged and part of the building collapsed.

Some of the victims were blown to bits and grim-faced rescuers carried out pieces of shattered bodies form the scene of the blast.

“It was absolutely gruesome. I saw bodies burning when I got there minutes after the explosion,” one witness said.

Police said the casualties would have been much higher but for a delayed lunch-break. It was not immediately known why the routine was disrupted yesterday.

“The area affected would normally have had about 400 workers returning after lunch,” one of the survivors said.

The drivers and the cleaners of the three lorries which arrived at the Ceylon Cold Stores premises from the North yesterday were missing the Police said.

Troops moved in and cordoned the area as thousands of city workers thronged the scene severely hampering rescue operations and making it difficult for assistance to reach the bombed factory.

The blast at 1.19 p.m. was head with in a five kilometre radius and shattered windows in nearby buildings.

The bomb, according to police, could have had a destructive power similar to the recent blasts which wrecked the CTO and an Airlanka Tristar early this month killing 31 people.

As the explosion rent the air, city workers took to the streets in their thousands running towards Slave Island.

“This is exactly the reaction we don’t want. IT hampered our work even at the CTO,” a senior policeman said.

The telephone circuits, swamped by anxious callers, could not cope with the traffic and “circuits are busy” recordings were heard by many subscribers.

A spokesman for the National Security Ministry said that the Tamil terrorists were believed responsible for the explosion.

Additional Government Analyst A. R. L. Wijesekera who visited the scene of the blast said that the explosion appeared more powerful than the Tristar and the CTO ones.

Colombo’s JMO Dr. M. S. L. Salgado and his assistants were also at the scene yesterday doing some of the necessary forensic work.

The magisterial inquiry will be held today by the Colombo Fort Magistrate Quintus Perera.

Hospital’s emergency services were equal to the task

A. S. Fernando

Emergency Services at the Colombo General Hospital were optimised to cope with yesterday’s Elephant House bomb blast, a hospital spokesman said.

Within minutes of the explosion, Teaching Hospitals Minister Sunethra Ranasinghe arrived at the hospital which deployed several outstation ambulances that were available at the time to the scene to transport the victims to hospital.

The condition of 10 of the 18 victims now being treated in the neurosurgical and burns units and two other wards were described as critical. The delay in supplying lunch to the factory staff yesterday had saved many lives, according to Elephant House employees.

“We normally have our lunch about 11.30 a.m. at the canteen,” one employee said. “But yesterday, lunch was not ready by 11.30 a.m. as usual. Had we taken our lunch on time, we would have unloaded the empty bottles in the Vavuniya lorry including the crate in which the bomb was concealed and stacked them all in the storeroom. If the bomb exploded in the empty bottles stores, it would have perhaps claimed the lives of the entire staff there numbering 115. The delayed lunch was a blessing.”

Selvin Fernando (33) one of the injured undergoing treatment in Ward 52 of the Hospital’s Accident Department had several head injuries and cuts on the body.

He said he was in the storeroom awaiting the call for lunch at the time of the explosion. The lorry which burst into flames following the explosion was parked about 20 feet away from him. As the roof crashed something hard hit his head which stunned him. He could only take a few steps towards the entrance before he collapsed.

“I was dead to the world until I woke up on the hospital bed a few hours later,” he said.

Suriyarachchi (26) from Battaramulla was another victim of the blast. He was lying with his head and body swathed in bandages. A clerk in the empty bottles section, Suriyarachchi though was coherent.

He said the explosion about 10 feet from him momentarily blinded him and deafened him.

“Only the God above us know how I managed to find my way out of the rubble. I was bleeding profusely from cuts from glass splinters and feeling faint.

--------------

Tomorrow

Two villages in Trincomalee attacked

Yesterday

Midnight massacre of 20 villagers

---------------