HK family recalls kindness of Thais in 2004 tsunami

[rooster59]

HK family recalls kindness of Thais in 2004 tsunami

By The Nation

 

Howard Liang said the kindness of Thai people including kids who came to their assistance was especially touching. His wife also told of a girl offering her a half bottle of water and a father and his little girl offered their shoes to the family.

 

A family from Hong Kong recently recalled their traumatic experience of the deadly tsunami that hit southern Thailand 15 years ago.

 

 

Educational investor Howard Liang, 64, together with his wife Luanna Liang, 62, and their two daughters – Chloe, 30, and Charmian, 27 – recounted that nineteen members of the family were in Phuket when the tsunami struck on December 26, 2004. Luckily, all survived the ordeal while the two boats they were on were smashed by huge waves, sending them to the swelling sea.

 

Howard Liang said the kindness of Thai people including kids who came to their assistance was especially touching. "They helped us with all they could without asking for anything back," he said.

 

His wife also told of a girl offering her a half bottle of water and a father and his little girl offered their shoes to the family.

 

See short-VDO clip of the family giving an interview to the Nation Group.

 

 

One of worst disasters Thailand has faced was the tsunami in 2004 which caused more than 5,000 deaths in the southern region, compared to a total of 230,000 deaths in countries hit by similar incidents. Back then, Thailand did not have a tsunami warning system, partly because the country had never experienced such a devastation.

 

After the disaster, Thailand installed a tsunami warning system and the establishment of National Disaster Warning Center (NDWC) in 2005, along with improvement of related facilities, such as disaster warning towers and warning buoys in both long and short distances.

 

ACM Somnuek Swatteuk, an expert in disaster warning, told Thai PBS that those buoys were recently replaced by new ones.

 

Long-distance buoys were placed nine hundred metres from the shore. After ringing, people have over an hour to move away from the oncoming tsunami waves.

 

Short distance buoys were placed three hundred metres from the shore. After ringing, there is 30 minutes for people to move away.

 

In addition, the director of the Earthquake Observation Division under the Thai Meteorological Department, Winai Thongphasuk said that the division also installed vibration wave measurement stations nationwide. These stations can calculate the centre of the earthquake, as well as the magnitude and its occurring time.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30379928

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-12-28

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[unamazedloso]

Ugly truth is that most thais were looting. I was asked to go looking for money from dead peoples wallets. I was in Khaolak and there was literally nothing left and we were stuck there for a coupe days. My girlfriend at the time went straight to the hotels and took everything she could find, breaking the windows that werent broken and such whilst there was body parts and devistation everywhere. I left my then gf after that. Clearly karma doesnt exist because she is now loaded and constantly on a intl holiday working as a manager for a major hotel in pattaya.

Anyway, i took it upon myself to help people gather at the local lookout, started dragging people to morgues which is now what the hotels had become with just hundreds of bodies, etc.. Wasn't pretty. I didnt see any assistance from any authorities for the couple days i was stuck there. It was us and local farmers that cleared roads and such to get out.