Disaster on the Other Side of the World Hits Close to Home

Half a world away from southern Asia’s devastating earthquake, Sanjaya Nanayakkara paced the floors of his Moreno Valley home Sunday, making desperate phone calls in hopes of learning the fate of his relatives in the Sri Lankan coastal city of Galle.

Many of Sri Lanka’s phone connections were down. But in the morning, Nanayakkara briefly contacted family members who told him that his uncle, a man in his 60s, had died in the flooding. His aunt moved the body and other surviving family members to the second story of a house that was surrounded by seven feet of water.

But were they still trapped? By the afternoon, Nanayakkara had no answers. His frustration lapsed into hopelessness.

“There is nothing I can do,” said Nanayakkara, who works odd jobs for a living. Nanayakkara even called a friend who owns a helicopter in Sri Lanka, asking him to fly a special rescue mission for his family. But the friend told him that Sri Lankan media were using the helicopter to report on the disaster.

News of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami evoked worry and fear among many southern Asian immigrants in California as well as families of vacationing tourists, who tried to find out whether loved ones were among the missing or dead. Some hastily organized relief funds; others gathered for prayers at local temples.

San Francisco computer programmer Joey Rosario, 29, became uneasy when he heard about the earthquake late Saturday night from an Internet news site. His parents live on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. When he found a map of the affected region, though, he was relieved -- his parents’ small inland town was in no danger.

But answers eluded others. In Pasadena, worried calls came in to the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara Temple, a house of prayer popular among immigrants from Sri Lanka, as early as 3 a.m. The chief monk, the venerable Pandit Dhammarama, spent much of the day trying to reach his brother and sister, who live in a heavily damaged region of the island nation. By the afternoon, he still didn’t know what had happened to them.

“It’s so, so sad,” he said. “A terrible situation.”

Jerome Rodela, 23, of El Monte didn’t know how to contact his father, Albert Rodela, who was on vacation in Thailand.

Sometimes, he said, his father stayed at a beach bungalow in the resort town of Phuket, which was hit hard by flooding.

“I don’t even have a phone number for him,” he said. “I’m trying to stay positive and think he is OK, and that he will be home safe on Friday.”

Reacting to news of more than 2,000 dead on the east coast of India, the National Federation of Indian American Assns. announced that it hoped to raise $100,000 this week. Mayuri Patel of Phillips Ranch, a singer in an Indian band, said she would plan a benefit concert to rebuild homes and schools.

Keshini Wijegoonaratna, president of the Sri Lanka America Assn. of Southern California, said she and other officials had a few thousand dollars to send to the country immediately, but could not reach Sri Lankan government officials by phone.

The preliminary death toll in Sri Lanka on Sunday evening topped 6,000 people. But Wijegoonaratna noted that the damage to infrastructure would be a further blow to the country, where a nearly two-decade civil war has weakened the economy and sent thousands of Sri Lankans, like Nanayakkara, to Southern California to seek a better life.

Nanayakkara said he hoped the devastation would persuade the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels to accept the government’s offer to revive peace talks.

“I hope the rebels will stop their fight, at least now,” he said. “Everywhere people are dying in every country. I hope it’s time for peace.”

Times staff writers Daniel Hernandez and Rachana Rathi contributed to this report.