Memories of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami came flooding back for Sandun De Silva when he received a tsunami alert in Whangārei.
Photo / Imran Ali
Memories of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami came flooding back for Sandun De Silva when he received a tsunami alert in Whangārei.
Photo / Imran Ali
Memories of the deadly Boxing Day tsunami in his native Sri Lanka came flooding back when Sandun De Silva received a tsunami alert on his phone last Friday morning.
The 30-year-old Whangārei cafe manager was less then half that age when his family and friends were ordered by the SriLankan government officials to move to higher grounds when they arrived at a Buddhist temple on the morning of December 26, 2004.
Locals didn't know what a tsunami was back then, he said, let alone having a tsunami siren or an alert system but they do now.
The tsunami killed an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, and left millions homeless and at risk of disease.
It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
De Silva's priority on Friday morning when the tsunami alert was given for Northland following two earthquakes was his wife and 2-week old daughter.
He lives in Onerahi overlooking the sea, about 100m from the edge of mangroves up a hill.
"From what I saw while going back home on Friday, Whangārei reacted very well to the Civil Defence warning. People took the tsunami warning seriously and had something serious happened, they could have said they did everything right," he said.
As a teenager growing up in Sri Lanka, Sandun De Silva saw the devastation caused by a deadly tsunami in 2004.
Photo / Imran Ali
In Sri Lanka, he said there was a separate government department similar to Civil Defence in New Zealand that dealt with natural disasters in general— a far cry from 2004 when hardly anyone knew what a tsunami was.
As soon as his phone went off with the tsunami alert soon after arriving at work that morning, he said memories of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean came flooding back and said it was a relief when the warning in Whangārei was lifted the same day.
Back home, he vividly remembered spending Christmas with family and friends in the eastern Sri Lankan town of Ampara and the group had just arrived at a Buddhist temple overlooking a beach when the Navy moved in.
"They told us to evacuate to higher grounds because there was a tsunami coming. No one knew what a tsunami was, they didn't have a clue. We were shocked to see people running on the roads... it was very chaotic.
"No one was prepared for it because no one knew what a tsunami was. We were in an area that was extensively damaged but I personally didn't see any tsunami waves rolling in from the evacuation point we were at.
"After a couple of days while driving back home, I saw the extent of damage. Homes and vehicles were washed away and some friends I knew lost everyone," he lamented.
A woman clears away debris from where her home once stood after the Boxing Day tsunami back in 2004.
Photo / Getty Images
De Silva said it took his family "quite a bit of time" to learn what a tsunami was and what caused it.
After the deadly tsunami, he said Sri Lankan authorities introduced tsunami sirens and he himself has heard a couple of them go off.
His father called him about 2am on Friday after hearing about the earthquakes near the Kermadec Islands and asked him to move to higher grounds.
After he received the tsunami alert on his phone, De Silva said he called his wife and landlord before returning home to be with his family.
"Hearing stories of how some people lost their families during the 2004 tsunami, I thought about my wife and daughter. Like me, my wife was also on holiday back home at the time.
"I've received about 50 calls from the local Sri Lankan community since Friday, just checking on how we are. That shows the community as a whole is very much aware of taking a tsunami warning seriously," he said.
He moved to New Zealand in 2013 and came to Whangārei from Auckland two years ago.
Sandun De Silva thinks Whangārei residents reacted positively to the tsunami warning by leaving the city and moving to higher grounds.
Photo / Mike Dinsdale
In Sri Lanka, the civilian casualties were second only to those in Indonesia, with about 35,000 killed in the tsunami.
The eastern shores of Sri Lanka were the hardest hit since it faced the epicentre of the earthquake, while the southwestern shores were hit later, but the death toll was just as severe.
The southwestern shores are a hotspot for tourists and fishing.
