There were at least 1,500 passengers on the Galle Express and Shenth was one of the few to survive.
He remembers being
irritated because the train had stopped for no obvious reason.
"Suddenly I heard
people screaming and running away from where the sea would be, towards the
train - next thing I heard a massive swoosh of water and I can see this shelf
of water coming in from the ocean," Mr Ravindra said.
The first wave detached the
carriage that he was travelling in.
Debris from a wrecked train
lies on the ground December 30, 2004 near Galle, Sri Lanka.
The waves smashed into the
train after it stopped near Galle
"The water was rising
inside the train, so I climbed out through the door onto the side of the
carriage and sat on the roof," he said.
"It wasn't like the
iconic view you see of a tsunami, it was like a shelf of water. I'd never even
heard of a tsunami before so it didn't even register that this was something as
devastating as it turned out to be. It was just surreal."
Astonishingly, Mr Ravindra
remained calm enough while he was sitting on the roof to take photographs until
the second wave hit.
"The second wave was a
far more threatening wave like a wall of water hurtling towards us. I could see
the wave taking out the other carriages."
It was the second wave that
killed most of the victims.
"I think a lot of
those people were trapped in the train - and sitting on the track - they all
drowned. The other carriages were being tossed around in the water and I could
see dead bodies floating around in the water."
When the water went down
again Mr Ravindra decided he should try to get to higher ground.
"There was a lot of
debris - the water was about waist deep and there was a lot of debris floating
round in the water - a lot of corpses - which I had to move out of the way to
get further inland,' he said.
Mr Ravindra had lost his
flip flops, so he had to wade barefoot through the water.
"I stepped on
something and lacerated my foot down to the bone, but the adrenaline had kicked
in and I wasn't really feeling the pain.," he said.
He finally made his way to
a farmhouse where he stayed for two days until the roads were cleared and he
was able to get back to his family in Colombo. It was only when he saw the news
on television that he realised how lucky he was to have survived.
About 36,000 died in Sri
Lanka on that day.
Mr Ravindra planned to
return to celebrate Christmas there this year.
"From my own personal
point of view it's really important to go back on the tenth anniversary - and
remember what happened," he said.
"People shouldn't
forget what happened 10 years ago because it was a monumental event."
Sky news
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