Kirinda Capsizing: A Good Turn Gone Wrong

By Roel Raymond and Lalith Perera
in Kirinda Tissamaharamaya and Lunugamvehera

On Monday the 16th of August, Wasantha Kumara (41), his wife Sriya Kanthi (35), their two children Aysha Nawodi (12), Sathmini Sandeepa (6), and their twin nieces (Sriya Kanthi’s sister’s children) Pramudi Hansala and Samudi Hansala (9) got into a Navy Boat at the harbour behind the Naval Dispatch Centre in Kirida for a quick ride into the sea.
The Incident

Never having been on a boat before, the children were at first afraid, but their fears were put to rest when the boat safely made its way back to the harbour. Then came the twist in the tale. A sub-naval officer at the harbour offered to take the children on another spin. Less than ten minutes later the boat capsized in rough waters, leaving only two survivors.

Witness Account

I.M Sepala, a fisherman, was in his hut on the beach at the time of the incident. ‘’If I had a phone or a camera I would have recorded the whole thing!’’ he exclaimed. He showed us where the boat capsized, at the end of a jetty, less than twenty metres from the shore and said that while the sea was not particularly deep there, on a rough day the waves made it impossible to swim.
The powerful navy boat had stopped horizontally at the edge of the jetty, which led Sepala to assume that something was wrong, perhaps with the engine, for ‘’ No boat ever stops there’’. Ten seconds later a large wave crashed onto the boat, turning it over. It was then, Sepala said, that he grabbed a rope and ran down the jetty.
The sea was rough and Sepala said that he had dared not enter it. He threw in the rope and pulled little Pramudi out. Next, he said, he pulled Sriya Kanthi out and then Aysha Nawodi. All the while he noticed that the Navy official – who presumably – could swim, was hanging onto the boat, looking on dazedly. ‘’I didn’t think he would drown as well’’ Sepala said.

The Family Speaks

Wasantha’s brother-in-law Gayan Sanduruwan spoke to the Leader at the funeral that was held in Lunugamvehera. ‘’It is an unfortunate incident’’ he said. ‘’our akka will not speak. Already the media has twisted this tale and blown it out of proportion. This is a hard time for us all, we have lost 4 members of our family’’.
According to Sanduruwan, Wasantha and his wife – both school teachers – had organised a holiday excursion for their children that included visiting the Hambantota town and the Ranminithenna Tele-Village. As a last treat, Wasantha had spoken to his friend Wijeya Kumara, a naval officer stationed at Kirinda and also organised a boat ride for his family.
WijeyaKumara and Wasntha had met less than a couple of weeks before – after a period of 18 years – having gone to university together, Sanduruwan said. On that fateful day, WijeyaKumara had lent the family his support, obtained entrance for them to the Naval Dispatch Centre and organised a boat for them to take a spin in the sea.
Little did anyone know, Sanduruwan said, that a holiday excursion that was planned with so much joy, would leave the family bereft of  four lives; Wasantha, his two children Aysha and Sathmini and one niece Pramudi Hansala, leaving only Sriya Kanthi and the other niece Samudi Hansala alive.

What Went Wrong

While the incident itself seems to be a strange twist of fate, there is reason to believe that the multiple drownings could have been prevented. According to I.M Sepala only one child was wearing a life jacket. Gayan Sanduruwan says that the children had never been to sea before, which raises the question, why had the naval officers at the Naval Dispatch Centre not insisted that the life jackets be worn?
When questioned Navy Spokesman Captain Athula Senaratne agreed. ‘’The occupants of any boat, Navy or otherwise, should be wearing life jackets’’, he said. However he also said that he was in no position to comment further on the Kirinda drowning as investigations into the days events were in the process of being conducted by the a specially set up Board Of Investigation by the Navy.
When asked if the Officer WijeyaKumara, who had organised the boat ride for Wasantha’s family – presumably passing them of as his own for practical purposes – would be reprimanded for his actions, Captain Senaratne said that the sole purpose of the investigation would be to ‘’prevent a repetition of such incidents, not to punish or find fault’’.
He acknowledged that while not completely ethical, Navy officers ‘’did’’ allow such excursions for their own family members. He stressed again, however, that until the verdict from the Board of Investigators is made public, he would not be in a possession of enough facts to comment on the drownings.
Meanwhile, Sriya Kanthi hangs her head and wonders what to make of her life. Little Samudi Hansala is lost without her twin sister and Naval Officer WijeyaKumara must hold his head and wonder at the strange stream of events that led to a good turn for a friend he hadn’t met in 18 years, go catastrophically wrong.