Sri Lankans Drawn to Wave-Stricken Train

It’s an unlikely tourist attraction. Thousands of people a day are making the pilgrimage from all over Sri Lanka to stare at eight passenger cars and a locomotive that have captured the imagination of people here and around the world.

“I came down from Colombo to have a look,” said Chandralatha Weliwatta, a 50-year-old homemaker who made a 10-hour round-trip drive from the capital. “It’s much more powerful when you see it yourself.”

If there’s an enduring symbol of the Dec. 26 tsunami that has killed more than 30,000 Sri Lankans, it’s the Queen of the Sea. The 7:40 train out of Colombo packed with holiday-makers was ripped from the tracks, rolling repeatedly across the flat expanse of scrub and palm trees and sending an estimated 1,500 people to their deaths.

Behind a rope barrier preventing sightseers from interfering with recovery work, the curious, grieving and touched gathered to gape at nature’s handiwork, wide-eyed at the power it took to toss these giant machines around like toys.

The tragedy tourists included families out for a drive, video camera-toting city residents and businessmen picking through the mud and debris in expensive leather shoes. There were also larger groups, including touring politicians and 30 junior army cadets in short pants and matching shirts who stopped by on a recent afternoon.

“I didn’t come to give a blessing,” said Buddhist monk Meddegama Chandrawimala, 34 and barefoot, his shaved head reflecting the tropical sun. “I just wanted to see it. I took some pictures and may put them in a magazine,” he added, pulling a black camera from the folds of his orange robe.

On the narrow dirt road leading into the area, cars, minibuses and three-wheeled scooters jostled for parking spots. Traffic jams periodically clogged the main road nearby as rubber-neckers slowed down to glimpse the railcars through the trees.

A.L.S. Wishwajith, 33, a policeman from Colombo who has been guarding the site since Dec. 28, said the numbers of visitors had grown steadily and was approaching 5,000 a day. “It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” he said.

The Queen of the Sea has become such a haunting image for many Sri Lankans in part because of its everyman quality, sociologist Cindy Caron said. Many Sunday travelers enjoy the ocean breezes on trains that parallel the shore.

“The passengers came from all levels of society and from every economic and religious group,” Caron said. “People definitely think, ‘It could have been me’ when they see this.”

H. Karunasena, a 59-year-old fisherman who’s lived his whole life within a hundred feet of the accident site, was returning home from fishing that morning when the wave hit. As he approached, he heard screams coming from inside the cars. But shock, his grief at losing his boat in the flood and terror that another wave was coming overwhelmed him, he said, and he ran away.

Only with time has the train disaster fully hit him, he added, recalling how as a child he’d sit under bridges watching the train’s underside, or put coins on the rails so the train would flatten them.

“The trains always seemed so unbelievably strong, like a mountain,” he said. “That’s why we’re so shocked to see something move it. How could the waves do this?”

Nearby, scores of onlookers quietly pondered the strewn railway cars, some people alone, others in bunches, holding umbrellas and babies as they tried to imagine the force behind such chaos. The once-mighty locomotive, blue with a yellow stripe down the side, lay broken into pieces, the prow identifying it as Unit 591 donated by the Canadian government.

Six of the red carriages strewn among the trees were third-class cars, one was for second-class passengers, and another was reserved for luggage and the train crew. All were dented, several had holes in their roofs, and most had smashed stairs. The windows were open. At the end of one car, a nasty smell wafted out along with the sound of hundreds of flies feasting on clay pots of rotting yogurt.

Inside car No. 15059, the second-class coach, leather seats with headrests had offered passengers a more comfortable ride than the hard basic seating in third class. But everyone shared the same fate.

Clothes, bags and toiletries were draped over seats and strewn on the floor, here a blue pillow, there a blue-and-gold school tie, over by the door some still-wet blue jeans.

The force ripped the wheels off several of the carriages and carried stretches of track more than 50 feet. Railway workers and soldiers laboring at the site said they planned to repair the tracks, put new wheels on the railcars and eventually roll them back to a maintenance yard to see if they could be salvaged.

As they spoke, a crane strained to lift one of the cars out of the sand and onto railroad ties as an army tank tugged at it from the other end with a long chain.

The third-class cars held the same kinds of things as the second-class coach, but in greater numbers, suggesting more crowded conditions. Most were items for a day at the beach: towels, flip-flops, an uneaten lunch, a swim fin. A New Year’s card appeared to have been half written on the train. And there was an alarm clock, its hands frozen at 9:16 and 55 seconds.

Although the waves no doubt tossed the items around, the opened bags and well-distributed contents suggested that looters had also been at work.

Waruna Kaluarachchi, 47, a Sri Lankan engineer visiting from Australia, where he lives, said the Queen of the Sea encapsulated the shock and loss felt by many Sri Lankans. He compared it to the World Trade Center for Americans after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Relatives and friends of the dead came to Telwatte in large numbers immediately after the tsunami in search of bodies or memories. Some still trickle in. T.W. Sujeewa, a 32-year-old hotel worker, came with his wife and three children to honor a teacher and his wife whose bodies were never found.

Increasingly, however, those arriving have no direct connection to the tragedy.

“This is a really famous spot now,” said Ruwan Wijerethene, a 42-year-old businessman, emerging from a white van with 12 family members on their way to Galle to visit a relative. “We’ve been to other damaged places, but we wanted to see this one the most.”

As they headed back to their cars, some onlookers were struck by how naive humans are to think they’re in control. “This shows, even when you think you’ve made strong things, nature can just wipe it out,” Sujeewa said.

Few left without being profoundly moved. “It’s so shocking to see this and consider so much loss of life,” said Weliwatta, the homemaker. “I’ve never seen such a thing in my life.”