Tsunami waters raise landmine fears in Sri Lanka

POINT PEDRO - Already haunted by fears of a new tsunami or spread of disease, survivors picking through debris of entire towns to recover corpses at Sri Lanka's northern tip face a new danger -- floating landmines.

Nestled near a border dividing the north between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels, the area around the small fishing village of Point Pedro -- devastated by giant tsunami waves on Sunday -- is now littered with plastic landmines uprooted by floodwaters.

"There are land mines spread all over. Many of them have moved, hundreds are floating," said Sinnathurai Kathiravelpillai, a district medical officer working near Point Pedro.

Mine disposal units estimate there are around one million mines scattered mostly around northern Sri Lanka, a legacy of a bloody two-decade civil war that killed 64,000 people until a ceasefire three years ago.

Landmines here are a part of life. Children grow up around road signs warning them not to play with them. Many areas are still cordoned off by yellow tape and skull and crossbones signs. Some residents hobble past on artificial limbs.

Demining teams, including several from abroad, are working in the north to create safe access for residents and aid convoys and have already cleared tens of thousands of mines.

The force of Sunday's giant waves -- which has killed nearly 23,000 in Sri Lanka and more than 80,000 across Asia and counting -- churned up sand and earth and residents saw hundreds of the mostly plastic devices bobbing on floodwaters.

Other vestiges of Sri Lanka's protracted civil war dotted the area. Floodwaters washed away Sri Lankan army checkpoints posted along the coastal stretch and twines of rusted razor wire were strewn across roads.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose territory begins just a few kilometres away from Point Pedro, say nearly 10,000 people have perished in their northern and eastern coastal strongholds in the wake of Sunday's disaster -- around half of Sri Lanka's rising nationwide death toll.

Bloated bodies have been piled into mass graves.

The tsunami, triggered by an underwater quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, hit as tensions between the two sides over the Tigers' demands for self-rule reached fever pitch.

The rebels threatened a month ago to break the truce, but have since appealed for government help to cope with the tsunami's aftermath.

The giant waves also wrought devastation on fishing villages on the coast of the Jaffna peninsula.

"The sea has taken our lives," said Charles, a white-bearded man in a dirty white sarong who sat looking over the destruction.

Along a 6.4km stretch west from Point Pedro to the village of Valvedditturai -- once a smugglers paradise and fishing haven but now a ghost town -- barely a house was left standing.

Mangled cars and debris from buildings now litter the coast that was once lined with row after row of fishing boats.

But local fishermen had lost more than their livelihood.

"My wife and youngest child have gone, washed away with our house," said Peter Solomon, who survived with three other children.

- REUTERS