Chandani Swarnalatha was in the kitchen when the first blast occurred. “It sounded like the sound came from the sky so I ran onto the balcony to look,” she said, via telephone from Lebanon. “Then, in ten seconds, the second explosion happened.” She was thrown back into the house, said Swarnalatha, a 57-year-old from Galagedara [...]

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Lankans in Lebanon recount their experience of the blast

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Chandani Swarnalatha was in the kitchen when the first blast occurred.

“It sounded like the sound came from the sky so I ran onto the balcony to look,” she said, via telephone from Lebanon. “Then, in ten seconds, the second explosion happened.”

She was thrown back into the house, said Swarnalatha, a 57-year-old from Galagedara in Kandy who cares for an aged woman in Achrafieh, one of settlements worst hit in Tuesday’s blast at the Port of Beirut. She woke up in shock with a ringing in her ears. Her body was covered in black dust. Everything was.

“There was no fire, just a tremendous force,” she continued. She ran into the room of the lady she was caring for and found the door jammed shut. She used a fire extinguisher to break it open, helped her out of the room and then the building. They lived on the third floor of an eight-storey flat.

“The sound of people screaming and buildings crumbling lasted for about 20 minutes,” Swarnalatha recalled. “There wasn’t a single glass left intact. Our front door was gone. The neighborhood has united and hung nylon clothes over the shattered windows for now.”

The massive explosions took place around 6.26 pm, the result of a fire in the port warehouse setting off 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. “At first, we thought it was an Israeli attack,” she said. “Later, we were told it was an accident.”

Fifteen Sri Lankans, all of them women, are receiving treatment in hospitals. Fortunately, the majority of Sri Lankans are not located in areas close to the blast.

Shani Calyaneratne, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Lebanon, was being driven home when she saw smoke rising from the valley below her. She told her driver, Ranjan, that it seemed like anti-Government protesters were burning tyres again. He commented that it must be a whole lot of tyres because there was a lot of smoke.

“Suddenly, our car was raised from the ground,” Mrs Calyaneratne said. “It went up a lot more in the front. I told Ranjan that we seemed to have been knocked from behind but when we turned around to see, the nearest vehicle was around 25m away.”

It was then that they heard a massive sound. In front of them, a mushroom cloud rose up and the sky turned red. They went home where Mrs Calyaneratne’s husband related having fallen off his chair and the house having shook. The chairs in the garden were toppled over and there was haze everywhere.

“It is like mist,” Mrs Calyaneratne said. “It reduced gradually and only cleared up today. In the beginning, we couldn’t even see in front of us.”

Everyone’s fridges were burned out. And people, including Embassy staff, experienced headaches, vomiting, heaviness and diarrhea. They were advised to drink plenty of water. A large number of people are still missing and 157 have died. A total of 300,000 houses have been damaged. The Ambassador and staff answered a public call for blood donation. While a second evacuation flight from Lebanon is scheduled for August 15, the injured will need medical clearance to travel. It will transport 285 mostly domestic workers back home.

Lebanon declared a three-day state of national mourning, while the Supreme Defence Council declared Beirut a disaster city. A state of emergency is in effect for two weeks that started on Tuesday. Lebanon is also in lockdown till tomorrow.

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