In 1996 I guess, during the Lake House bomb blast and subsequent army operations around the place, I was just a few hundred meters away at the bus station. Helicopters and gunshots could be heard and people were running away. I hurried back to my hostel and switched on TV to a local channel to find "there's some incident going on in Colombo around Lake House. We will give you more information later." Then I switched to CNN where they were already there with a live cam. By the time the local channel reported the incident the whole country knew even how many people were dead.