‘Panic mode’: witness describes chaos as Easter Sunday bombings rip through Sri Lanka’s capital, leaving hundreds dead
- Blood and ambulances everywhere, this 24-year-old recalls the moment he pulled up to the luxury Shangri-La hotel, and then had to evacuate
As a car carrying him pulled into the back entrance of the luxury Shangri-La Hotel in Sri Lanka’s capital of Colombo, he realised something was wrong.
People were telling him not to come in, it was not 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.”
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 sweatshirt.
His car had left, so he hailed a motorised 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.
