Negombo (Sri Lanka): Sri Lankan cricketer Dasun Shanaka on Monday, revisited the Easter Sunday horror, the serial blasts that took place in the country on Sunday, leaving almost 300 people dead and more than 500 injured.
The 27-year-old allrounder skipped Easter service at St Sebastian's Church in his hometown of Negombo because of a long trip the day before.
Incidentally, St Sebastian's Church was among six churches and hotels targeted by suicide bombers who killed 321 people and injured hundreds more -- the worst violence seen in the country since a civil war ended a decade ago.
- “Normally I would have gone to church but the day before I had gone to Anuradhapura, so I was tired, that morning, when I was at my house, I heard a sound, and then people were saying a bomb had gone off at the church. I rushed there, and I’ll never forget the scene,” a website quoted Shanaka, as saying.
- “The entire church was destroyed, absolutely shattered, and people were dragging lifeless bodies outside,” he added.
- The 27-year old Sri Lankan all-rounder said that he first started looking for his mother and grandmother following the blast whereas his friends stayed behind to help others.
- “My first instinct was to look for my mother. Once I spotted her, I took her away from the area. Then I began looking for my grandmother, but when I heard that she had been sitting inside, my heart sank, if you saw the scene, you would know there was no way anyone inside could have survived because simply the debris from the blast had injured everyone even in the vicinity,” he said.
- “When I went looking for my grandmother, I wasn’t expecting to find her alive. But, as it turned out, the blast had hit and killed those around her, but she had been protected from severe damage by the bodies of the others,” Shanaka said. “In the end, she was hurt badly having been hit in the head with shrapnel, but we were able to take her to hospital for surgery,” he added.
Eight explosions rattled various suburbs in Sri Lankan cities of Colombo, Negombo, Kochchikade and Batticaloa as the Christian community celebrated Easter Sunday.
A national emergency was declared in Sri Lanka in the wake of the deadly blasts, which took the lives of 290 people and wounded 500 more.
