Talk:Queen of the Sea train disaster
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When I initially created this article I provided Samudradevi as the local name of the train, with no attribution as to what language it is. Someone has since ascribed this as being the Tamil name, but given the part of the island the train was running in I would have thought it was more likely to be in Sinhalese. Can someone provide definite information either way? -- Arwel 03:50, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I am Sri Lankan (Sinhalese). Samudradevi is a Sinhalese word. It may mean the same thing in Tamil as well - I don't know Tamil.
It is somewhat mysterious that so many people died on this train. The Head Guard (one of the few survivors) has reported that the train was halted for 20 minutes after the first wave struck. The third wave (20 minutes after the first) was the massive one which caused the deaths). The driver stayed in his compartment, apparently waiting for orders, but he had no mobile phone. It is said that there was a lagoon on the land side of the train, so that an exit in that direction wouldn't have been easy. Whatever the reasons, there appears to have been a feeling among the passengers that they would be safe if they stayed on the train.
They were tragically wrong. When the tsunami struck it said to have been 20 feet high, not as high as the 30-foot wave which hit the South-east coast of the island and, also, the train was 200 metres inland. It is likely that if passengers had got off the train and taken shelter on the landward side of it would have had a better chance of survival. The compartments filled with water instantaneously and most drowned inside. Even swimmers had little chance within a closed space.
Sena Fernando http://www.bestlanka.com
[edit] Double counting
Perhaps, to avoid misleading the statistics, this accident should be mentioned as a train accident, but should be counted as a tsunami accident.
Tabletop 04:36, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
