‘I thought it was the end of the world’

AT first, American tourist Matthew O’Connell thought the rising sea was the sign of a good day’s surfing ahead.

Staying at a beach cottage with his Israeli girlfriend Sue, O’Connell joined hundreds of other tourists and Sri Lankans walking along the beach, inspecting the jellyfish, octopus and other sea creatures that the strange waves were dumping on the beach on a balmy Sunday morning.

But he became alarmed when the water reached the steps of his cottage - one of hundreds dotted along the southeastern Sri Lankan seaboard, a popular haunt for budget travellers.