Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island’s coast, but they can’t find any dead animals.
Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka’s biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.
“The strange thing is we haven’t recorded any dead animals,” H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national Wildlife Department, told Reuters on Wednesday.
“No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit,” he added. “I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening.”
At least 40 tourists, including nine Japanese, were drowned.
The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, which sent waves up to 5-meters (15-feet) high crashing onto Sri Lanka’s southern, eastern and northern seaboard, flooding whole towns and villages, destroying hotels and causing widespread destruction.