Basab Bagchi, who works for an Indian medicare company in Colombo, was on a Sri Lankan beach when the tsunami struck. His story:

I had gone to Trincomalee, on the east coast of Sri Lanka, to celebrate my birthday. I checked into the Nilaveli Beach Hotel. My family had joined me.

We arrived there on December 25 in time for my birthday the next day. After breakfast that day, we decided to venture out to sea.

There is a place called Pigeon Island, about 3 km from the shore. The hotel has a boat service to get there. My wife and I decided to go. My son preferred to be in the swimming pool, which is on the beach.

We were waiting for the boat when the water level suddenly started rising. My wife said we should cancel the trip. Then we saw a huge wave coming. We turned and started running. I yelled to my son to get out of the pool. I picked him up and ran.

The water hit me but I managed to run to the first floor of the hotel. My wife was less lucky. When she could not get there in time, she climbed on to a baby slip adjacent to the pool. The water level rose, forcing her to let go and float. She then clung on to a tree.

On reaching the stairs, I realised she was missing. My son was crying and telling me to let him go as his mother was no more. After the water receded, I spotted her from the first floor holding on to a tree and told her we were safe. Then, we saw another wave coming. We shouted to her to hold on tight.

After the water receded, we rescued her and came running out of the hotel. The intensity of the wave was so high that vehicles in the parking lot were floating around like matchboxes. The reverse current took some of them out to sea. It was scary as hell. Most buildings had been flattened.

We did not know which way to go. We were not sure whether the roads would lead us to higher ground or to the sea shore. We boarded a truck to the 6th Mile Navy Post. The officers there could not help us much as the navy post had been washed away and they could not establish contact. There was a British family who had also survived the ordeal. With the help of a local tour guide, we returned to Colombo around 1 am the next day.

I don?t know how we survived. So many people in the hotel were swept away. The hotel staff thought we were lost since we had bought tickets for the boat ride. They put our names on the list of missing persons.

The devastation caused in Sri Lanka is beyond imagination. Towns have been swept away. People only know of the south ? Galle, Matara, Hembentota. The eastern coast is equally devastated. The numbers coming in are mere approximations.