Sri Lankans are the loveliest people (From Stroud News and Journal)

Sri Lankans are the loveliest people

AS the scale of death and destruction resulting from the Boxing Day tsunami appears to grow daily in countries bordering the Indian Ocean, Stroud musician Andy Dunn, who was with friends on the last day of a two-week holiday in Sri Lanka when disaster struck, explains that at the time the survivors really had no idea just how lucky they had been

"When you are a visitor in a strange land everything is strange and people do things differently," said Andy, explaining why, when he was woken in his guest house in the Sri Lankan fishing village of Mirissa by cries that the sea was coming, he got out of bed and dressed but didn't particularly hurry.

It was just after 9am on Boxing Day. After dressing he wandered the 20 yards to the beach to see what was going on but even when he saw people being dragged out of the sea and noticed that all the hotels along the beach-front had been completely levelled he still had no sense of the enormity of what had taken place.

"Even then it didn't strike me as particularly strange or shocking," said Andy. "I just thought it was a bit of a flood. Obviously there had been a big wave from the sea but because I had never been there before I didn't know if that was common. Nobody seemed to know what had happened and everyone was looking bewildered.

"And everyone was calm. There was no weeping or wailing, not even from the kids, even one who had a leg pouring with blood. There was no feeling of disaster and the odd thing was that there was not on ambulance siren, or claxon or helicopter overhead all day."

Eventually they learned that the wave had been the result of an earthquake and there was a general feeling that there might be another one along later so Andy and his partner, former SNJ reporter Victoria Temple and their friend Leo took to the nearby hills for safety but even there he said there was no great sense of disaster.

"There were lots of people up the hill, some with no clothes, some with legs all torn to shreds but everyone was calm. A Dutch woman told me she had been sitting with her children in a beach-front restaurant when a big wave came up to their feet. She expressed surprise that it had come in that far but when the water level continued to rise almost to the ceiling she grabbed on to her children and made her escape. But even she was really calm.

"Looking at it, it was obvious that the place was never going to be the same. All the local people had lost everything they possessed but someone down in the village made a great big curry and rice and sent it up to us on the hill in packages wrapped in newspaper.

"The Sri Lankans are probably the most lovely people in the world, the most altruistic, friendly and charitable. They earn less than £1 a day and yet they were giving us their food."

As the day went on Andy and his companions realised that the water was running out and fresh supplies were not arriving. They also had a plane to catch the next day and felt they had better make their way to the airport in the island's capital, Colombo.

They still had all their belongings and, importantly, their money and managed to find a rickshaw driver to take them some of the way to the seaside town of Mattara. Here they were befriended by a Sri Lankan politician who put them up in his house while he went off to deal with the 500 dead so far reported in the town.

Despite the destruction, the politician found someone prepared to drive the English visitors to the airport and they safely arrived in Colombo.

"It was embarrassing really," said Andy. "There was so much devastation there, people had lost everything and yet they were still looking after us. It is almost as if because you have money and come from a rich country your life is somehow more important, and I am sure some people believe that."

A few hours later they were on the plane and after an 11 and a half hour flight landed at Gatwick airport where they were greeted by hundreds of photographers and reporters, people offering blankets, trauma counsellors and the emergency services.

It was only then that they came to realise that what they had until then regarded as a bad end to a good holiday was in fact world news and they had been very lucky to survive.

"It was sheer luck that we didn't get smashed to pieces," said Andy. "We were very, very lucky."

* Andy raised £300 for the Tsunami Appeal in just an hour and a half by busking on Stroud High Street on Thursday, December 30.

"I just had a couple of hours to spare and thought I should do something," he said. "I was quite shocked that people gave so much. I suppose it puts a lot of things in perspective."