In some places the waves were mysteriously selective. Two houses stand while the one between is gone. In other places entire neighborhoods have been erased. A wall stands here, a kitchen sink over there; a spiral staircase leads nowhere. And where have the former occupants gone? In Sri Lanka alone 40,000 stories ended terribly that day. In many cases even the people who might have been left behind to remember those stories were washed away too. Total erasure. The survivors occupy tents and temporary huts provided by Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, and others. What would it have been like to be one of the first people to arrive on the scene? It must have been an unthinkable landscape of death and misery. Even now there are white flags along the road indicating that people
... read more
