Named with grim irony Samudradevi, or Queen of the Sea, the train that left Colombo Fort station shortly after 9am on Sunday for its regular run to the southern city of Galle was full even by Sri Lankan standards.

As many as 1,700 passengers crammed its carriages or hung from the sides. It was a holiday weekend as well as a full-moon day when Buddhists offer special monthly prayers and people travel to visit relatives.

An aerial shot taken from a helicopter shows villagers search for the missing along railroad tracks at Telwatta, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) south of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004. The massive tidal waves that slammed into Sri Lanka flung a train off its tracks, leaving many of its more than 1,000 passengers dead or missing, police said Tuesday. Rescue workers reported another 3,009 deaths from Sunday's earthquake-triggered tsunami, lifting Sri Lanka's toll to 21,715, said the National Disaster Management Center.(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

For most of its length the railway runs close to Sri Lanka's west coast, sometimes within sight of the beach. At Telwatta the track cuts through thick palm groves and the sea, 200 meters away, is barely visible.

Without warning, two hours after leaving Colombo, most of the train's hot and swaying throng were dead. A giant wave roared through the trees and threw the carriages off the rails, filling them instantly with water.

At the disaster scene yesterday scores of troops were lifting bodies out of the wreckage and the water logged chaos of fallen trees and ruined buildings which surrounded it. Working in teams of four, soldiers wearing black scarves over their noses and mouths against the stench carried bloated and stiff corpses on stretchers and placed them on a patch of flat ground. At least 100 bodies could be seen.

Most of the windows in the two nearest carriages that were lying on their sides were open, but one had its glass broken, perhaps a sign that desperate passengers had smashed it in an effort to escape.

They had little chance. The wall of water must have been at least six meters (20ft) high, to judge from missing or displaced tiles on the roofs of a large family house near the wrecked train.

The Queen of the Sea's fate qualifies as the world's worst rail accident, outstripping the death toll of around 800 who died when a cyclone blew a train off a bridge into the Bagmati river in Bihar, India, in 1981.

Scores of people in the community of Telwatta also drowned when the water surged in and destroyed their houses. It was hard to tell how many of the dead being recovered at the disaster scene were passengers. As the soldiers laid out more and more bodies, villagers stood silently watching in case missing relatives were found.

Hundreds of the dead were moved from the site on Monday to Batapola hospital, about 10 miles away. There the ghastly spectacle was repeated yesterday, with several rows of contorted corpses lying in the building's grassy forecourt.

"Nearly 700 bodies have been released to relatives already, but we still have 400 here," said Dr JM Jayatilake, the medical officer in charge.

The exact number of passengers who were on the train is unclear. Dr Jayatilake said police believed there were 1,700. This was based, they said, on Colombo Fort station's record of 1,500 ticket sales for Galle, plus an estimated 200 who, as usual, get on the train at various stops without tickets.

"Only a few people escaped alive, between 10 and 20," Dr Jayatilake added.

A forensic team from Colombo was photographing and finger-printing the unclaimed bodies at Batapola hospital so that records would be available for any relatives searching for their loved ones, once the dead were buried.

Many people were doing their own searching. Laknath Chandima, 28, a sales representative for a phone company in Colombo, was supervising a group of men who were moving lumps of masonry from the site of his parents' home close to the beach. "We found my father and he has been buried at my aunt's place," he said. "My mother and two sisters are still missing."

As the number of bodies increases, pressure is mounting for immediate burial without going through identification formalities so as to minimize the risk of disease.

Few of the houses in the area are habitable but many survivors are living in Buddhist temples on higher ground, and going back to their ruined homes by day to salvage what they can. The roads are full of pedestrians.

"In many cases the bodies have already become too bloated to be easily recognized. From now on they will have to be buried immediately," Sub-Inspector WS de Silva said at Mitiyagoda police station, two miles from the derailed train.

Three men could be seen in a holding cell in the police station. They were among six men arrested while stealing jewelry and cash from bodies, he said.

Plans for burying even those bodies which have been photographed are being thwarted by bureaucratic arguments and a shortage of fuel. The authorities have started rationing petrol and diesel in the disaster-stricken areas.

"We asked OG Gurege, the district secretary in Ambalangoda, to give us diesel and excavators to bury the dead," said Dr Jayatilake. "We hoped to start this morning but have not been able to."

In his office, surrounded by a crowd of people asking him to sign their fuel allocations, a harassed Mr Gurege diverted the blame to senior officials. "We made a request for excavators and nothing has yet been done. What can one man like me do?"

© Copyright 2004 Guardian/UK

###