Leanne Mitchell: Sri Lanka, after the deluge.

• Author: Mitchell, Leanne
• Position: WORLDWATCH FIRST-PERSON

The road from Colombo to Galle has always been treacherous. Two narrow lanes most of the way, it snakes along the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, transporting a river of buses, trucks, cars, three-wheeled tuk-tuks, motorbikes, and bicycles, all of them weaving hair-raisingly among the livestock, dogs, humans, and other forms of life. People live along it cheek by jowl in structures ranging from five-star hotels to wooden hovels. Despite its hazards, the road has long been the gateway to the spectacular coastline that peeks out intermittently as you speed along--the lifeblood of this area of fishermen, merchants, and tourism operators.

The scene was familiar to me from previous travels; my parents emigrated from Sri Lanka to Australia 37 years ago and the country's south coast beaches were always a stop during trips back. In March I returned to research the social and environmental impacts of a new highway that will replace the Galle Road as the country's major thoroughfare into the South. As I drove down the road on a sunny morning, the sea behind the bustling market towns was calm and a perfect aquamarine. Lines of coconut trees adorned brilliant white sands; every view was a postcard. Then it hit me.

Many of the spectacular views weren't even there three months before. The December 26 tsunami, which indifferently ripped up shantytowns and solid, 300-year-old Dutch- and Portuguese-built houses alike, ironically opened to view more of the once built-up coastline, revealing many more picture postcards--if you could ignore the carnage.

It started not far outside of Colombo, the capital. The town of Moratuwa, about 30 kilometers south, offered the first scene of devastation. Makeshift wooden housing, built along the train tracks and looking over the sea, didn't stand a chance. Some parts were nothing but rubble.

Farther south, the road wove through pockets of devastation. Most striking, once I got past the shock of the terrifying force the waves must have carried, was that the damage was not uniform. Some coastal towns stood virtually unharmed. Others, like Telwatta, about three hours south of Colombo, looked like bombed zones. Telwatta was also the scene of the world's worst train disaster, in which more than 2,000 people died trapped in carriages derailed by the surging waters.

The tsunami claimed more than 30,000 lives here. Environmental organizations...