On 26 December 2004, an earthquake in the West Coast of Northern Sumatra set off a series of other earthquakes lasting for several hours which resulted in a Tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

This led to widespread disaster, particularly in Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, Indonesia and Thailand, with damage also in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Somalia, the Seychelles and Kenya. Sri Lanka faced one of the worst natural disasters recorded in recent history.

The Tsunami struck a relatively thin but long coastal area stretching over 1 000km - two thirds of the country's coastline.  The destructive ocean waves killed more than 35 000 people, displaced nearly 2.5m people and destroyed thousands of houses. 

The overall damage to Sri Lanka is estimated at $1bn, with a large proportion of losses concentrated in housing, tourism, fisheries and transportation.

Reactions ranged from immediate assistance to communities and local governments in restarting to function as speedily as possible, to short and long-term assistance in supporting communities to rebuild their infrastructure and housing so that they might again have normal lives and eventually recover from the trauma of the tsunami.

This paper aims to analyse the impact of the Tsunami on infrastructure facilities in Sri Lanka and results confirm that after almost one and a half years, the Tsunami rehabilitation process is slow as compared to its start.