The Indian Ocean that occurred on December 26, 2004 was beyond comprehension by all of us. It was one of the worst natural disasters that could happened in this lifetime. More than 260,000 people had died with many more missing. It had caused massive destruction and lots of suffering to the survivors in the countries affected by the Tsunami especially in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar and Somalia.

Our hearts go out to them and we grieved with the survivors and their families. They were suffering from profound psychological shock and trauma due to the loss of those who are near and dear to them and the destruction of their hard earned property and homes by the terror waves. These waves had caused inconceivable damage to lives, properties, infrastructure facilities, buildings, vehicles, machinery, etc.

In Sri Lanka, nearly one million people are still in refuge camps or with their friends or relatives. Many have lost their means of living, especially those in the fisheries sector and the hotel industry. They are now in the dilemma as to how to rise from the “dust” and restart their lives again. Even the young ones were not spared the tragedy. Those who survived went through a great trauma when they found out that their parents had died and became orphans. Our sincere condolences to all of them. We learnt an important lesson that tragedy can strike anytime and we, being the fortunate ones, will try our best to relieve those in great suffering by helping them in whatever ways we can do or afford to rebuild their lives again.

On our part at the Mahindarama Buddhist Temple, we started a relief fund-raising effort immediately to collect as much funds, medical supplies, foodstuffs, bottled drinks and clothing for the Tsunami survivors and their families. The overwhelming outpouring of support, solidarity and compassion shown by all the sponsors and volunteers who participated in our Temple’s small relief effort was incredible. The young and old alike were seen working “round the clock” in the Temple premises to ensure all the contributions were quickly sorted out, packed and placed into containers to be shipped to the survivors immediately.

In addition, the Mahindarama Buddhist Temple assisted to help the Tsunami survivors to restart their lives by constructing the Amata Village comprising 50 low-cost homes.