Naval officer recalls chilling discovery while searching for his girlfriend in the wake of tragic Boxing Day tsunami
A naval officer has recalled finding his girlfriend ‘trapped in the fork of a tree’ and described the crucial hours he spent desperately trying to save her life during the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
Before tragedy struck, Gayantha Maheepala and his girlfriend Nayana Dilhani were young lovers who innocently passed notes to each other in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Gayantha describes Nayana as a ‘beautiful girl’ and cherished her letters to him by hiding them under her mattress – having no idea of the devastation that would soon strike.
The deadliest tsunami in history claimed the lives of more than 227,000 people after it struck Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
It was caused by a massive 9.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred at 7:58 a.m. on December 26, 150 miles outside Banda Aceh, Indonesia.
As Gayantha waded through the water in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters on record, he said there were “dead bodies everywhere,” but he was “still confident that I would find my friend alive.”
Nayana always wore a blue T-shirt and jeans – an outfit that Gayantha took notice of as he examined every body that passed him during the flood.
In the National Geographic documentary Tsunami: Race Against Time, Gayantha said, “I saw a girl trapped in a tree, wearing the same jeans and T-shirt.”
Gayantha Maheepala (pictured) lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka and innocently passed notes to his girlfriend, having no idea of the devastation that would soon strike
A man observes the rubble in Galle, southern Sri Lanka, after the tsunami swept through the small island country, Thailand and Indonesia
Gayantha continued, “As I came closer, I saw it was her.
“She was stuck there, face down, caught in a fork of the tree. Face down, hands hanging limply like a corpse.’
A panicked Gayantha flagged down a passing truck and pulled his girlfriend ‘on top of the other dead bodies’ before heading to Karapitiya Hospital in the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka.
Upon their arrival, several doctors and nurses lifted Nayana onto a trolley, with Gayantha close behind.
“Doctors and nurses surrounded her,” Gayantha said. ‘They squeezed her stomach. I saw water coming out of her mouth.
‘I was by her side. I stroked her hair.’
Seeing his girlfriend’s lifeless body in front of him, Gayantha added, “I was completely devastated.”
Finally the doctors stepped away.
The aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 227,000 people
Thanks to her friend, Nayana Dilhani (photo) survived the devastating tsunami of 2004
Gayantha remembers that a few long seconds passed before Nayana ‘opened her eyes’.
Instead of worrying about her own condition, Nayana looked up to see her friend by her side and exclaimed with relief that he had survived.
The naval officer said he felt “a lot of love” when he hugged his girlfriend for the first time after her horrific near-death experience.
“This was the beginning of our love,” he said.
Nayana soon learned that her friend had saved her life and despite being surrounded by devastation, she had a heartwarming realization.
“I knew he was the man I wanted to marry,” she said in the documentary.
Tsunami: Race Against Time is a National Geographic documentary released on November 25.
Researchers went through about 300 hours of footage, some of which has never been seen before, to create the four-part series ahead of the 20th anniversary of the tragedy next month.
The couple, who say the tsunami was the “beginning of their love”, now have two sons together
The four-part series is directed by documentary maker Daniel Bogado
Director Daniel Bogado described it as an archive-led documentary, where you find the people in the images who tell the story.
He said: ‘We have done extensive work, going to Indonesia and Thailand, knocking on doors asking for cassette tapes and approaching TV stations. The next job was finding the people in those images so they could share their stories.
‘Some people didn’t want to be involved, but that was the exception rather than the rule. If you explain to people the purpose of the series, which is that it should serve as a historical document, as evidence of what happened, but also as a memorial to the lives that were lost, many people can get behind that.
“It’s hard to sit down and talk about the worst day of your life, but it’s also something with a moral purpose, that they can sit down and show it to their children.”