A naval officer recalled finding his girlfriend “stuck in the fork of a tree” and detailed the crucial hours he spent desperately trying to save her life during the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.
Before disaster struck, Gayantha Maheepala and her girlfriend Nayana Dilhani were young lovers innocently passing notes to each other in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Gayantha describes Nayana as a “beautiful girl” and treasured the letters she sent her by hiding them under the mattress, having no idea of the devastation that would soon ensue.
The deadliest tsunami in history claimed the lives of more than 227,000 people after hitting Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
It was caused by a massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale that occurred at 7:58 a.m. on December 26, 150 miles from Banda Aceh in Indonesia.
As Gayantha walked through the water after one of the worst natural disasters on record, he said there were “dead bodies everywhere” but he still “had faith that I would find my girlfriend alive.”
Nayana always wore a blue T-shirt and jeans, an outfit that Gayantha kept an eye on as she examined each body that passed by her in the tide.
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 her girlfriend with no idea of the devastation that would soon occur.
A man looks at the rubble in Galle, southern Sri Lanka, after the tsunami devastated the small island country, as well as Thailand and Indonesia.
Gayantha continued: ‘When I got closer, I saw it was her.
“She was trapped there, face down, trapped in a fork in the tree. Face down, with her hands hanging limply like a corpse.
A panicked Gayantha stopped a passing truck and dragged his girlfriend “over the other dead bodies” before heading to Karapitiya Hospital in the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka.
Upon arrival, several doctors and nurses loaded Nayana onto a cart, closely followed by Gayantha.
“The doctors and nurses surrounded her,” Gayantha said. “They squeezed his stomach. I saw water coming out of his mouth.
“I was next to him. I stroked his hair.
Seeing his girlfriend’s lifeless body before him, Gayantha added: “I was totally devastated.”
Finally, the doctors walked away.
The aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed the lives of more than 227,000 people
Thanks to her boyfriend, Nayana Dilhani (pictured) survived the devastating 2004 tsunami.
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 boyfriend next to her and cried out in relief that she 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 boyfriend had saved her life, and despite being surrounded by devastation, she made a poignant 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 that premiered on November 25.
Investigators analyzed some 300 hours of footage, some never before seen, to make 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 children together
The four-part series is directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Bogado.
Director Daniel Bogado described it as an archive-based documentary, where you find the people in the footage to tell the story.
He said: “We did a lot of extensive work going to Indonesia and Thailand and knocking on doors asking for 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 get involved, but that tended to be the exception rather than the rule. When you explain to people the purpose of the series, to serve as a historical document, as a testimony to what happened but also as a monument to the lives that were lost, a lot of people can support 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 you can sit down and show your kids.”