Leaving more than 600 people dead in Sri Lanka's eastern port of Trincomalee, the tsunami that struck the city on Sunday hit the local tourism industry very seriously.
With its beautiful beach and hospitable residents, Trincomalee is one of Sri Lanka's most attractive tourist spot. However, the tsunami has destroyed a lot of beautiful hotels in the region and it will take a long time for the local tourism industry to recover.
In Nilaveli, one of the area's most seriously affected by the tsunami, the 30-year-old Nilaveli Beach Hotel was destroyed by the tsunami. All the 86 guest rooms were inundated on Sunday and nearly half of the villa-style buildings collapsed.
Neville Paul, manager of the hotel, said Tuesday that nine people died on Sunday in the hotel due to the tsunami. "One of the deceased was a restaurant staff member and eight of them were guests of the hotel," Paul said.
Broken beds, chairs, tables and soaked mattresses were still scattering around the yard of the once beautiful hotel. A car was squeezed between two coconut trees with part of its head buried in the mud.
"Most of the damaged vehicles belong to the tourists who came to the beach to play," said Paul. "They left their vehicles in Trincomalee , Sri Lanka and didn't come back," he added.
The manager said he is negotiating with the hotel's insurance company for compensation. "But it's hard to estimate the scale of the loss," he said.
Waltern Kell, a security guard of the hotel showed Xinhua the mark of the water line on the wall. "I will leave the hotel very soon. I don't know when I can come back," Kell said after asking Xinhua to take a picture of him as a memory of his working days in the hotel.
Local residents said many of the local hotels have the same fate as that of Nilaveli Beach Hotel. This is testified by the difficulty in finding a habitable hotel in Trincomalee.
In addition, the normal life of local people has also been affected by the tsunami, which made residents desperately short of food, drinking water, clothes, tents and other supplies.
In Nilaveli, some displaced residents are sitting under a piece of cloth with four of its corners tied to surrounding trees. Most of the refugees are women and children.
"We have no power, no drinking water and no tent," a woman told Xinhua. As the new school term will begin on Jan. 3, local residents said they also need text books and exercise books for their children.
Local officials said more than 3,000 families were displaced by the tidal wave. The tsunami also injured more that 500 residents.
J. M. Waleer, a local resident, said the sea water rushed into the region by nearly 1,000 meters on Sunday, destroying a lot of houses resided mostly by poor fishermen and farmers.
Waleer said most of the dead were women and children because men had gone out to work when the tidal wave came in on Monday morning.
Relief supplies are coming from Colombo, Kandy and other western and central regions of the country. Lorries carrying rice, drinking water and other supplies can be seen on the road from Colombo to Trincomalee.
On a small lorry at the road side of Nilaveli, volunteers were putting small packs of rice, matches, water and candles into some plastics bags for delivery to local residents.
Police said Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse inspected Trincomalee on Tuesday. Local residents said they hope more relief supplies will come after the prime minister's visit.