Salawa firestorm

by Chathuri Dissanayake

As the vehicle approaches Salawa town, the orderly lines of buildings on either side of the road abruptly ends, and devastation begins. The newly erected tin wall can barely cover the destruction within the camp, and only ghost structures remain of the housing scheme opposite the camp. Salawa town resembles a battlefield, electricity wires hang loose close to the ground, and hardly a roof remains intact. On one side, the stocks in a hardware store is still burning, the smell of burned chemicals and rubber engulfing everyone around, burning the airway as you breathe in. Piles and piles of artillery shells and other ammunition lie on either side of the ground to be collected by the Army.

About 1,000 soldiers from the Army have been deployed to help clear the debris of explosives thrown in during the fire that broke out in the Kosgama Army Camp Armoury on Sunday night.

Pix: Rukmal Gamage

"There is still smoke coming from this round," a soldier is heard calling out to his troop leader. Orders are given immediately to clear out, but upon examination the part of ammunition is declared harmless, and all members of the troop return to work.

In total 351 families within about a five kilometre radius of the camp have been affected, with some families still living in five temporary shelters. The worst damage however is to residents within a 500m radius of the camp.

Life's earnings reduced to ashes

G. V. Siripala, too old to walk and get help, sits on a pile of rubble which was once his shop in front of the camp, patiently waiting for the Army to give clearance to salvage whatever he can from the rubble. He ran a small cycle repair shop and sold spare parts for three wheelers, and lived in the back of the shop, with his wife. Nothing remains of his possessions collected over 60 years of his life. The little money and few papers he had in a small iron box he used as a safe is burnt to ashes and charred.

A feeble man, Siripala says he fell many times while running to save his life, that Sunday night. He doesn't know how far he has walked, he couldn't reach his daughter's house, so he took shelter in a relative's, he says. He is not sure how he would recover all that he has lost, his tools, disfigured in the heat, and his stocks burnt. But his biggest loss is none of these.

"All my medical records have been burnt. I have hypertension and diabetes. I will have to do a lot of tests again," he lamented. His neighbour, K. A. Jayaseela, ran a small grocery shop until Sunday. Now, it has been brought to the ground. Standing next to Siripala, they cannot point out the boundaries, as it is just a pile of bricks and ashes. "I had all my documents in there, four bank savings books, record book for government assistance for the elderly, and my farmer's pension book, now all gone," she says.

"Most of all my till in which I collected Rs.10 coins for 'pin' (charity) is gone too."

As they sit waiting in the hot sun for the government officials to come and make assessments, none could be seen in the area.

Government officials

Everyone, including the Army officers were looking for the Divisional Secretary officials and Grama Sewaka officers, but the officers were hard to come by. The two complaint points set up by the Army too were closed as there were no civilian government officers to engage with civilians.

The people keen to find the officials, went around looking for them, sometimes even mistaking reporters for government officials. Many of the shop owners wanted the officials to inspect their shops and homes before they cleared them, to ensure their compensation, but it was a slow process. Only one team from the Divisional Secretariat's office was said to be at the location. None of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) officials were available to advise people in the Salawa town area.

There were no other technical teams from the Engineering Bureau or universities to assess the damage or determine the safety of the structures affected. Even by Saturday the DMC was unable to give a full count of houses that have been destroyed.

Some were told to simply take pictures of the destroyed property to submit to the Grama sewaka later, along with letters to file for compensation. But no proper guidelines were issued. Only a few large scale factories had insurance, while many who ran small shops in the Salawa town are at a loss as to how to recover from the disaster. It was announced that for those whose houses had been destroyed, a housing allowance of Rs. 50,000 would be paid, while each business entity would be paid the same amount for three months.

The government assessors have been instructed to assess the damage of the businesses destroyed. However, no clear information was given on how compensation would be given to those who lost their livelihoods in the disaster. As the day grew hotter, frustrations grew worse, finally prompting some men engaged in clearing work to launch an impromptu protest demanding action. One by one the men dragged in debris from their shops to the main road and blocked it completely, claiming that ongoing traffic is hindering the clearance and repair work. They wanted political assurance for compensation and assistance, demanding their representatives to visit the affected.

A tense situation resulted, the police taking control over the situation, and as the civilian dispute worsened, the military officers withdrew their men from traffic control till the issue was settled.

Villages wake up from Sunday night's nightmare

As chaos erupted in the town area, the surrounding villages, also badly affected were slowly recovering from Sunday Night's nightmare. Houses in Ranaviru Gammananaya were badly damaged, some beyond repair. Unlike the civilian area, the military has already inspected, and given promises to fully repair the damaged houses.

R. S. Amarasinghe, a war veteran who was injured in the Walioya Operation in '99 watched as four Army personnel put up a temporary shelter next to his house. He had just completed tiling his house, when shells from the blast destroyed it.

Although the walls of the house still remain, cracks had appeared and he believes it is not safe anymore. "We were not at home, had we been at home, we would not have been able to escape," Amarasinghe says standing on the edge of his garden which overlooks the camp.

His two sons, both studying in the Peradeniya University returned home on Thursday hoping to salvage whatever little they could, but returned to campus empty handed. Amarasinghe didn't want them to stay back, he says, as there is no place for them to even sleep.

Rohini, wife of an injured soldier living in the village watched Sunday night's horror unfold before she ran to safety with her children and neighbours."We heard small blasts first, and when it became louder we evacuated," she recalls.

Most families owned three wheelers, so escape was a little easy they say.

"We remembered instructions from war time, so didn't stop until we were 20 km away from the camp, and we ended up in Aththanagalla," Rohini said. As the villagers cleared the rubble and debris from their houses, many waited for their public representatives to visit them in their hour of need.

"We want them to visit us, see our plight and assure us that everything would be alright," claimed one war veteran requesting anonymity.

Luckily, some parts of their houses remain intact, unlike the Salawa Hospital.

Recovery efforts

The harsh sun shines brightly through the skeleton of the roof that remains in the Salawa Hospital. Some of the beds have been charred by the fire caused by the artillery landing inside, and the rain that followed the fire has made a muddy scene inside the wards.

The nurses are busy inspecting the damage and clearing out debris, while new supplies of medicine arrived from the Ministry. As the hospital became a disaster zone, two mobile teams were deployed to treat people in the area. Many who had lost their medicine accessed these to get refills. The hospital will have to be rebuilt to function in its former capacity, Dr. D. S. K. Liyanage estimated. The Ministry has already promised to approve a new building for the hospital. However, the medical team plans to make-do with the OPD building for routine clinics, when life returns to normalcy.

As the water in the area was deemed unsafe for drinking due to contamination from the blast the navy and Public Health Inspectors were tasked with testing water sources and clearing the wells in the area.

Over 300 wells had been cleared by Friday, and random water samples from water sources were sent to MRI for further testing. Households that got clearance for safe drinking water had put up notices to let others know, so their neighbours have access to safe drinking water. The toughest job that remained was reconnecting electricity. With vehicular movement restored to normalcy on the Colombo-Avissawella Road, repairing electricity lines had become a tough job for the Ceylon Electricity Board. They struggled to manoeuver their heavy vehicles amidst the mid-day traffic on weekdays.

Joint service station from Monday

On Friday, Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake, Disaster Management Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, and Minister Susil Premajayantha held a meeting with representatives from affected communities in Pahathgama-Hanwella Divisional Secretariat giving instructions for twelve service centres to be set up to provide relief to affected people in 12 Grama Niladhari Divisions.

If needed up to 50,000 Army personnel would be deployed to clear the debris. The Government is also trying to devise a mechanism to help the employees of business ventures destroyed by the Armoury fire.