The difficulty for the troops to break out from the Thondamanaru area was because LTTE forces blew up the Thondamanaru bridge to delay the government forces from reaching Valvettithurai, the native place of LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran.
The mouth of the river has the popular Hindu temple dedicated to Murugan called Selva Sannithy.
On May 28 troops managed to capture Udupiddy and Valvettithurai, and another column (commandos, under the command of Maj. Sarath Handapangoda) captured Nelliady and advanced towards Point Pedro without giving LTTE units time to regroup.