'Panic mode': Witness describes aftermath of Sri Lanka bombs

Associated Press
Sunday, April 21, 2019 5:59 p.m. | Sunday, April 21, 2019 5:59 p.m.

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Sri Lankan officials inspect St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, north of Colombo, after multiple explosions targeting churches and hotels across Sri Lanka on April 21, 2019, in Negombo, Sri Lanka. At least 207 people have been killed and hundreds more injured after multiple explosions rocked three churches and three luxury hotels in and around Colombo as well as at Batticaloa in Sri Lanka during Easter Sunday mass.

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A Sri Lankan police commando enters a house suspected to be a hideout of militants following a shoot out in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, April 21, 2019. More than hundred were killed and hundreds more hospitalized with injuries from eight blasts that rocked churches and hotels in and just outside of Sri Lanka’s capital on Easter Sunday, officials said, the worst violence to hit the South Asian country since its civil war ended a decade ago.

Bhanuka Harischandra was running a little late for his meeting Sunday.

As a car carrying him pulled into the back entrance of the luxury Shangri-La Hotel in Sri Lanka’s capital of Colombo, he realized something was wrong.

People were telling him not to come in, it wasn’t safe. Still, the car pulled around to the front of the hotel and Harischandra saw the aftermath of a bombing. People were being evacuated, others were being dragged. Blood and ambulances were everywhere.

“It was panic mode,” Harischandra, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company, said by telephone later in the day. “I didn’t process it for a while.”

Video shows the damage caused by some of the explosions at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds more on Easter Sunday. https://t.co/F5FTt2DfHV pic.twitter.com/PhJyuzxxI9

— ABC News (@ABC) April 21, 2019

He decided to go to the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, where he thought it would be safe. But just after he was dropped at the luxury hotel and about to enter the building, he heard another bomb go off.

Now he was being evacuated. Soot and ash fell on his white sweat shirt.

His car had left, so he hailed a motorized rickshaw and went to meet friends at a coffee shop. They contacted other friends, trying to make sure everyone they knew was safe.

It was too soon to think about what it might mean.

At least 8 bombing attacks struck at least 3 churches in Sri Lanka, along with 3 five-star hotels favored by foreigners, killing more than 200 people.

Read more: https://t.co/43Dcm0D9Si pic.twitter.com/Mzoe0Tl60b

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 21, 2019

Over the course of the day, eight bombs exploded at churches and luxury hotels in and near Colombo, killing more than 200 people. The Easter Sunday violence was the deadliest the South Asian island country has seen since a bloody civil war ended a decade ago.

Many Sri Lankans remember well the terror of the 26-year war. But not Harischandra, who was just a teenager when it officially ended. In the past years, conflict was far from Colombo. Growing up, he was mostly aware of his parents’ anxiety about safety, not of actual fighting.

Now their anxiety is back.

“For them, it’s a bit of a different situation,” he said. “They’re afraid this might start racial violence.”

-At least 207 people were killed
-450 people are wounded
-Police say 13 suspects have been arrested
-No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks
-Sri Lanka's defense minister calls it a terrorist attack carried out by religious extremists https://t.co/XrUQglzbG0

— NPR (@NPR) April 21, 2019

On Sunday night, he was with his family, observing a curfew. He said there was “a lot of tension” in the air, but he was also hoping that the worst might be over: It had been a few hours since the last blast.

Harischandra was heartened by the fact that his social media feed was flooded with photos of the lines of people waiting to give blood. Lines so long “you can’t see the end.”