Natural Selections: Life After the Wave

Prithiviraj "Pruthu" Fernando, a wiry, bespectacled biologist, was visiting his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for a much-anticipated Christmas vacation in 2004 when one of his friends who lived by the shore called him and said something strange had happened to the sea. At first, he and most people in Sri Lanka—even eyewitnesses—thought it was a localized affair. Then, throughout the day, news came in of more and more destruction and more people injured or dead. Finally, perceiving the magnitude of the tsunami, Pruthu and his colleagues from the Centre for Conservation and Research (CCR) grabbed medical supplies and headed south to the most stricken area to do what they could for the victims.