Defying the eye of storm: A priest steers his community to safety

(UCAN) Long before dawn broke over Chilaw on Sri Lanka’s western coast, Father Alex Nilantha, the administrator of the town’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral, was awakened by the frantic barking of the Church’s dogs.

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It was still dark at around 4 a.m. on 28 November, and their persistent scratching at his door cut through the silence with an urgency he couldn’t ignore.

An instinctive sense of danger forced him to look outside — and at the unfolding disaster that would engulf entire villages before sunrise.

The Deduru Oya, a major river in northwest Sri Lanka — the mouth of which empties into the Indian Ocean, near Chilaw, where the Cathedral is located — was already overflowing.

Floodwaters were swallowing streets and rising so fast that rooftops were the only visible markers of where family homes stood.

A small boat, was seen with three villagers struggled against the current on the main road. Without hesitation, Father Nilantha arranged a boat and set forth through the rising waters.

From house to house, through submerged lanes and swirling debris, he and a small team ferried terrified families to safety.

Mothers clutched infants; children cried out from shadowed doorways; the young begged for help for sick relatives.

Clothes floated ,where people once stood, in water more than a meter high in places.