Priest Recounts Moment Bomb Went Off In Lankan Church

The assistant parish priest of the St Sebastian Church, one of the targets of the series of bomb blasts in Sri Lanka, on Monday said that the Easter Sunday service was reduced to people wailing and shouting and nobody knew what was happening.

Sanjeewa Appuphamy said that hundreds of people had turned up for the Easter celebrations in the church and it was almost the end of morning''s celebrations when the bomb went off.

The series of eight bomb blasts, that targeted Easter worshipers and high end hotels popular with international guests, killed over 290 people and injured more than 500 others. 

Police have till now arrested 24 people, reportedly members of a Muslim radical group, in connection with the country''s bloodiest attacks in a decade.

"I heard a big noise," Mr Appuhamy told CNN, adding that he did not see the bomb but when the dust cleared, the church looked like a disaster site.

"Broken glass, dust, all of a sudden covered all the church. People were shouting, weeping, we didn''t know what was happening," the priest added.

Mr Appuhamy said, "We can build up our church but we cannot build up their lives."

The church, built in 1946, is one of the many churches in Sri Lanka dedicated to St Sebastian who is considered a martyr in the Catholic Church history.

Bishop J D Anthony said that the church''s rural location made it an unlikely target.

"We never expected such a thing to happen, especially in a place of religious worship. This church is in a very rural area so we never expected this to happen here," he said. 

Father Edmond Tillekeratne, social communications director for the Archdiocese of Colombo, said that the blast took place after Easter Mass, and that there were about 30 bodies lying in the area of the church.

He said three priests had been celebrating the mass at the time of the blast. Two of them were badly injured by flying glass and debris, and one was only lightly injured because he was behind the altar.

He estimated that more than a thousand people had come to the church for Easter Sunday "because it is a special day." Many came from villages, he said.

"You can see pieces of flesh thrown all over the walls and on the sanctuary and even outside of the church," he told CNN.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government has announced compensation for the victims of the blasts and stressed that all the damaged churches will be completely repaired by the government.