Twenty years after Boxing Day tsunami killed greater than 270,000 individuals in 13 nations, how Mail readers have helped baby victims flip trauma into triumph
It is now 20 years since the Boxing Day tsunami and the school rebuilt with donations from generous Daily Mail readers is a phenomenal success.
Seven former pupils are becoming doctors, more than a dozen are dedicated teachers and two ex-pupils became football stars.
The CWW Kannangara School in Galle, Sri Lanka, was torn to pieces by the terrifying 20ft wave that raged inland at speeds of up to 800mph on Boxing Day 2004. More than 270,000 died in 13 countries, including 151 Britons.
The devastation touched the hearts of kind Mail readers who responded in droves to our Flood Aid Appeal, raising a magnificent £15.92 million – a world record for a newspaper appeal at the time.
The cheques rolled in after we published photographs such as ones of nine year-old Tashmila Ushanthi and her fellow pupils in the rubble of her classroom.
Now aged 29 and herself a teacher, she returned to take part in one of the many ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary held in the shadow of the school overlooking the Indian Ocean on Sri Lanka’s south coast.
Tashmila’s father Nihal was one of those killed by the tsunami. She said: ‘The waves took away so many loved ones and changed our lives in seconds. I was lucky, I sheltered in the temple but so many people were picked up by the water… People fought for their lives and we were unable to help. No one will ever forget.’
The Mail’s appeal gave £250,000 to help rebuild the school. Near its new entrance, a granite plaque reads: ‘The school was rebuilt thanks to the generosity of readers of the Daily Mail, London, who contributed to the flood aid appeal, following the devastation of the tsunami.’
The wreck of the C.W.W. Kannangara College, Mahamaodara in Galle, Sri Lanka, in the region hit by the tsunami on 26 December 2004 triggered by a powerful earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra
The cheques rolled in after we published photographs such as ones of nine year-old Tashmila Ushanthi (pictured far right) and her fellow pupils in the rubble of her classroom
Over the years, many Mail readers travelling to Sri Lanka have visited the school and continued to make donations in support of pupils.
Reflecting on the rebirth of the school, former headmistress Jayasundara Perera praised the ‘generosity and warm hearts’ of Mail readers.
She said: ‘What is achieved at the school today and in the future will always be linked to those who gave us a chance to rebuild and provided a gift through education for children of the poorest families. It is a great thing that they (the readers) did.’
Among the achievements of the school since reopening are pupils going to university, several winning scholarships, seven studying to be doctors, more than a dozen becoming teachers and others nurses.
On the sporting field there has been great success too with the football team winning the all island championship and two girl pupils being selected for the international football team.
The former headmistress said: ‘Part of the reason these pupils have been able to gain scholarships is the wonderful school which was reborn out of the nightmare of the tsunami.
Former pupil Tashmila Ushanthi, now 29, on the day of her graduation as a kindergarten teacher – a career, she says, made possible by the kindness and generosity of Mail readers who donated to Flood Aid and the rebuilding of the school
Sajilh Madushanka, 11, playing cricket in the grounds of the rebuilt C.W.W. Kannangara College in Mahamaodara, Galle, southern Sri Lanka
‘We will always be grateful to the readers of the Daily Mail and they share in all the achievements, not just in these outstanding scholarship pupils but in the fact they have helped to make the lives of thousands of children and their families better.It is a legacy they should be proud of. We will always hold them in our hearts.’
In Galle alone, 1,200 children died, 33 were orphaned, 82 lost their mothers and 37 their fathers while across Sri Lanka 38,000 were killed – half of them children. The school is now a 228ft-long, three-storey building, protected by a 7ft reinforced concrete ‘tsunami wall’ decorated with murals copied from pupils’ drawings of the sea.
The first fully-rebuilt school to open after the tsunami, it boasts 12 classrooms, a computer room, a library, an auditorium, a science laboratory and a unit for music.
Over 400,000 donations were sent in response to the Mail’s appeal, including from pensioners donating their pension money and winter fuel allowances. Other schools were also helped in Sri Lanka and Banda Aceh, Indonesia. In both countries hundreds of homes were rebuilt – one Indonesian fishing village was paid for entirely by the money.
