8-Lane swimming pool to be built in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 January 2006, 16:43 GMT]
Swim Lanka, a Charitable Trust, has laid foundation for the construction of an eight-lane swimming pool at an estimated cost of ten million rupees in Trincomalee esplanade. This will be the first swimming pool to be constructed under "Learn to Swim Campaign," after tsunami disaster. Mr.Sundaram Arumainayagam, Trincomalee Divisional Secretary and the Special Commissioner of the Trincomalee Urban Council (UC) laid the first stone for the project Saturday evening in a forty-perch plot released by the UC from its esplanade, sources said.

The site is located between the Mc Heyzer Stadium and Dutch Bay beach. Adopt Sri Lanka, another international organization, is providing the funds and Swim Lanka will be responsible for implementing the project which is expected to complete by the end of June this year, SwimLanka officials said.

Officials of the North East Provincial Council and Urban Council and principals and teachers of schools in Trincomalee town participated in the event

Swim Lanka officials Mr. Julian Bolling and Ms Petronella Ballard said the building of swimming pool takes place as a tribute to all children who lost their lives on December 24, 2004 in tsunami.

Since the tsunami struck coastal areas of the northeast and south of the island, SwimLanka 0launched a short-term project on helping children affected by the disaster through a " Confidence-With-Water" healing program. Under this project SwimLanka officials and coaches started teaching all children how to swim by visiting coastal villages with five-meter fibreglass movable pools.

Ms Petronella Ballard said they have taught swimming to about five hundred children up to now in tsunami-affected divisions.

Water pumps are used to pump the seawater into the movable pools. Every two days the water is changed.

A strictly Olympic Pool must be 25m wide with a depth of 2.0m (min) at all parts of the course and must be 50m in length - between touch panels if they are used. The 25m width is to allow for 8 lanes to be 2.5m wide minimum with 2 spaces of 2.5m wide outside lane 1 and 8. So this is 2.5 x 8 lanes = 20m + (2.5m x 2) = 25m in total.