Can you please tell me whether this text is narrative or expository . Thank you .�
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My journey to Sri Lanka
over the Christmas period 2005 is punctuated by the laughter of schoolchildren
enjoying the holidays, but at Hikkaduwa station, where the train screeches to a
halt, there is, quite suddenly a resounding silence.
Here,
abandoned on an overgrown rail siding, sits the recently re- located remains of
one of the symbols of last year�s tsunami � the twisted and mangled wreck of
the former Colombo to Galle express, aboard which 1.500 people perished when
the sea swept violently through it.
As
I look around at my fellow passengers it is clear that all are affected by the
sight � some turn their faces away to the other side of the tracks. Others,
the majority, seem fixated by the rusting remains.
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Sri Lanka
has no widely accepted memorial to those who died in the tsunami, but many
regard this twisted metal shell as the most enduring testament to that fateful
day. A year on, official figures show the December 26 tsunami Killed 35.322
people in Sri Lanka, and left more than one million coastal dwellers homeless.
Half a million others lost their livelihoods in the disaster, many of them
fishermen. Most of those who perished along two � thirds of the coastline of
the island were directly associated with the sea. Further along the coast, towards
the settlement of Beruwala, locals tell me countless trawlers sank in the
harbor during the tsunami, making navigation at low tide virtually impossible
to this day.
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The fishing village of Perilya,
where the doomed Colombo � Galle express train was passing when the
tsunami struck, was once a successful coastal community. What remains along this
stretch of coastline today is a palpable bewilderment at the power of the
sea, even from hardy coastal dwellers used to the capricious moods of the
ocean.
On
the stormiest days fishermen still send regular rumours up and down the coast
of huge waves approaching. People here firmly believe the destructive forces of
nature haven�t quite finished with them yet.
��������������������������������������������������������������������������� �������� The�������� Week.���� �������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������January 8, 2006
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