Hugo Tilney with a survivor at Telawatta where 800 train passengers lost their livesGazette reporter HUGO TILNEY travelled to Sri Lanka to find out how Wiltshire aid is helping people to rebuild their lives and he returned optimistic that, despite the terrible destruction, they would succeed

Tomorrow is Sri Lanka's independence day but there will be few celebrations this year as the country continues to struggle in the aftermath of the tsunami.

For the estimated 950,000 people left homeless the concept of independence is a distant memory as they continue to line the roads in the hope of receiving food handouts.

But as I left Sri Lanka I could not help feeling a sense of optimism despite the incomprehensible destruction and stories of suffering and loss I had found all around me.

Stories like the fisherman I met on the beach in Galle. His wife and only child, a 14-year-old daughter, had been drowned, his house had been destroyed and the remains of his boat, and with it his livelihood, lay in pieces at his feet.

But my optimism came, I believe, from the fact that people are no longer dying. Indeed the nature of the tsunami meant that the vast majority of those who died were dead within minutes of the wave striking.

People are hungry and uncomfortable but they are not dying and that is almost entirely thanks to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of doctors who flocked to the affected areas in the first hours and days of the crisis. In doing so they prevented disease, so feared in the immediate aftermath, from taking hold and potentially doubling the death count.

A month on and things are improving though many more will need to pass before even the vaguest sense of normality is restored. Tents litter the carpet of rubble where people once lived and the first wooden huts are now being put up.

In Galle local aid agencies, funded by Colombo businessmen, and foreign workers are providing the everyday needs of the displaced people with sporadic contributions coming from the Sri Lankan government. While aid is trickling through there are little signs of international aid arriving, which is desperately frustrating considering the quantities in which it has been given. No one distrusts the Sri Lankan government as much as their own people.

For the people of Sri Lanka the fear of the wave returning is a very real concern and crippling in its effect. The world must now take every measure it can to establish early warning systems but life must go on. The sea must become the people's friend and provider once again.

In Telawatta, where more than 800 people died when waves hit a passenger train, I was met by an incredible scene of hope. Against the backdrop of utter devastation and the mangled wreck of the train, a group of foreign aid workers led children through the rubble towards the sea. The leader, an Italian, was dressed in swimming trunks, a mask and snorkel and flippers and the children were exploding with giggles at the sight of this extraordinary man.

Traffic was stopped as the singing procession crossed the road and on the shore of the beach the children were given a swimming lesson in an attempt to restore their faith in the placid sea behind them.

It was scenes like this, and the rebuilding of boats in Hikkaduwa, and the Sri Lankan ability to smile whatever the cost, that brought an unexpected smile to my own face.

There can, of course, never be a good time for a tsunami to strike but there are many reasons why December 26 was better than others. While I was in Galle one of the biggest schools, Sudharamv, located close to the harbour, was about to be reopened. The school had been extensively damaged including the complete obliteration of a 120ft x 80ft classroom. Before the tsunami 1,278 children were registered at the school but when I met the headteacher he told me there were now only 857. Of those missing only about 200 were known to have been killed. Had the tsunami struck on a school day it is impossible to imagine how even 200 children would have survived.

I also cannot help thinking, and I acknowledge the cynicism, that had the tsunami struck now, as opposed to at Christmas time, the amount of aid given by the rest of the world would have been far less.

December 26 saw families gathered at home, at a time of giving, without work commitments and in doing so provided the perfect platform for a massive aid effort. That challenge has been risen to and met and nowhere more so than here in Wiltshire with the incredible story of the Wiltshire Mercy Appeal and the thousands of people who have contributed. Times like these bring out the best and worst in people.

There is also the feeling, particularly within Colombo, that the tsunami has left a unique opportunity to rebuild and restructure Sri Lanka. The devastation has momentarily put the civil war between the government and the Tamil Tigers on hold. There have been talks between the two sides and people are talking about closer relations in the future.

Before the tsunami fishermen would work for the owner of their boat receiving 4,000 rupees (about £23.50) for every 100,000 rupees worth of fish they caught. But now there is talk of new boats being joint-owned by groups of fishermen allowing a more even distribution of the profits.

There is much good that can come from this terrible disaster so that next year the people of Sri Lanka can celebrate not just their independence from the British in 1948, but also their victory over the tsunami of 2004.