When in Hikkaduwa or Ambalangoda, Sri Lanka, do yourself (and them) a favour and go to the Community Tsunami Museum, 5km north of Hikkaduwa. This was a 'must visit' for all on our Australian Cricket Tour To Sri Lanka.
Curated and managed by a lady who survived the Dec 26, 2004 tragedy, the 45mins of education made one look at every wave thereafter a little differently. There are free tsunami photo galleries along this stretch of Galle Road, but paying Rs500 to Community Tsunami Museum to learn in detailed, stark reality about the tsunami was worth every rupee.
My ignorance has forgotten the lady’s name (can anyone help?), but what she doesn’t know about tsunami is not worth knowing. The simple, practical display of how they occur, and what happened in Sri Lanka was fascinating. I had a vague idea but over a cross-section map of Sri Lanka and Indian Ocean, her simple use of 2 blocks to show how underwater plates moved to create the tsunami, was exceptional and enlightening.
Every school kid and cricket tourist should come to learn how, see, and almost feel what happened that awful morning.
Galleries of photos and paper clippings are mind-numbing, whilst the one wall showing victims (behind a curtain which is drawn for those that want to see), is mortifying. It drove home the true horror of the tragedy, as did the wrecked train carriage on display; a bleak reminder of the force of nature.
Just before the museum is a memorial for the victims of the train that was crushed on the line nearby; a relief (above) depicting carnage and terror of the train on which only 2 survived. 1200 were killed.
Opposite, is the 18m tall Tsunami Honganji Viharaya (below), donated by Japan and unveiled on the second anniversary as a memorial to the 35000 Sri Lankans killed. The height of the wave was shoulder height, and is an exact replica of the 5th century, 175ft statue destroyed by Taliban nutjobs in Afghanistan.
