The Sound Of Roaring Thunder ... Then Screaming

[SunbeltAsia]

This is an article written at the Sydney Morning Herald...

A tsunami, when it approaches, is silent. A brown mass of water billowing towards the bedroom where I and my partner, Robert, were sitting on the bed in Khao Lak, in Phang Nga province just north of Phuket in Thailand.

We were staying in a hotel on the beach called the Seaview Resort, where Swedish, German and Austrian families raced to the deckchairs on the sand each morning to roast themselves. It was Boxing Day.

It was just after 10.30am when Robert jumped off the bed and said quietly, "There's a tidal wave coming." I turned and saw a brown mass of water swallowing the self-contained bungalows near the sand. They dissolved like balsa wood.

I still didn't comprehend. I said "No" and then Robert repeated it. Then I asked, "Are we going to die?" as the wave hit the concrete building where we were staying on the third, and top, floor.

It sounded like an aeroplane taking off. A roaring that swelled and dipped, completely surrounding us.

The building under us began to wrench and creak. Glass was shattering, but we couldn't hear anything human. It was as if we were alone.

The water rose ankle-deep in our room and it seemed to be slowing, although the horrible thundering continued.

When we ran up to the roof we couldn't see the ocean, but the thundering had stopped. The wave was sucking back out again. Suddenly we heard car horns, people screaming "help" in Thai, German, Swedish, banging on walls, sobbing.

Robert scrambled to the top of the roof and saw that the ocean had moved. We were in it. But the water was 10 metres higher, brown and clogged with floating timber, cars upside down, houses in pieces.

A Japanese couple arrived, terrified, on the roof, also from the third floor. Robert called to a German couple, the wife half drowned and blue-lipped, gurgling water with every breath. The six of us waited together on the roof and the German man began to pray.

The water seemed to drop at midday. So we went back to our room, grabbed our passports, small backpacks and water bottles, put on our sneakers and made the decision. We weren't waiting here for the next wave. We had to get out, and fast.

We clambered down through our destroyed building over stacks of wood, glass and doors, electric wires, bathroom fittings - it was completely silent. We climbed over bodies in sarongs, swimming costumes and thongs crushed under the rubble.

The reception area was missing so we climbed down into deep water and carefully walked the 400 metres up to the main road.

We picked our way over cars, timber, bodies and roofs through a demolished building site, past people injured and screaming, giving them extra bottles of water that we had taken from our room.

On the other side, the main road was immaculate. A stall with exotic fruit was intact but the normally bustling roadside was almost empty.

We hurried up the mountain on automatic pilot to a half-built resort where people seemed to be heading. And then the waiting, and the stories, began. Parents without children, husbands without wives, children without parents, a blond two-year-old boy wandering around without anyone.

A few hours later rumours were spreading - India was hit, Sri Lanka was hit, we heard that Phuket had been razed.

There were also rumours of another tsunami. Tourists and Thais with energy left headed up the mountain for the night.

A small group of 17 tourists and 10 Thais camped out on palm leaves at the top of the mountain as the full moon rose. People had broken arms - some of them were in pain.

We waited the night, hoping that the next night we could come down. We heard that the streets were filled with bodies.

The next morning we picked our way halfway down the mountain and waited with the Thais, who gave us rice, bananas and bread.

Suddenly, at 1pm, people seemed to start moving down. Rumour had it there were no more tsunamis and we should get out while we could before diseases like cholera set in. We left on a local truck and found our way to Phuket Airport.

Our resort had about 250 tourists staying in it and perhaps 60 Thai staff. We had watched the tourists dance and eat and drink at the Christmas Eve party on the beach.

We don't think more than 20 people, tourists or Thai, in our hotel survived and that was on a beach crammed with seaside resorts like ours.

[chuchok]

Here's one from the NZ Herald

Tourists pulled together in 20-hour fight to save lives

Dr George Latham said he saw hundreds of injured and dead after the waves struck Phi Phi in Thailand.

29.12.04

by Jon Stokes

A New Zealand doctor has thanked a band of tourists for their help tending to victims on a Thai island flattened by the tsunami.

Whangarei doctor George Latham and a group of tourists from several countries worked non-stop for 20 hours to save lives on Phi Phi island.

Dr Latham was anchored on a yacht off the island when the giant wave struck, and his 16-year-old grandson, Jordan, was playing on the beach.

The extent of the disaster did not hit Dr Latham until the boat returned to shore, around three hours after the wave struck.

"I had no idea of the destruction. The island was flattened. The only things left were cement block buildings, and lots of them were damaged," he said.

"There were piles and piles of rubble, with people just wandering around stunned.

"I found our grandson. The wave lifted him up and slammed him into a palm tree and up against the wall of a three-storey building. Somehow he got stuck there, in a window we think. He was lucky. It was a miracle, lots of bruises and a few lacerations."

The paediatrician called for all supplies from his yacht and teamed up with a US medical student, Sloane, who was a passenger on another yacht.

"We started seeing people. I have never seen such horrendous wounds, huge gashes, people with large sections of skin hanging."

Two Wellingtonians living in London, Murray and Shelley Pearce, joined Dr Latham and his wife, Ellen McNeil, an audiologist and former head of the National Audiology Centre.

"They had that typical Kiwi can-do attitude. Dressing wounds - working tirelessly," Dr Latham said.

"Hundreds were injured, I don’t know how many were killed, I saw lots and lots of bodies. Maybe hundreds, I have no way of knowing.

"There was a Swedish carpenter who made stretchers. We grabbed people who came down from the hills and got them to carry people to the helipad.

"The next day the Thai military started running in helicopters, bringing in medical teams, nurses and lots of supplies, drinking water and evacuating people rapidly. The 50 or so people I saw were evacuated by the next day.

"The attitude of the people who worked with me; my good friend Jeff [an American], Ronnie the Swedish carpenter who stuck with me and kept making the stretchers for the wounded, was fantastic.

"Then there was Paul, an Australian, I don’t know his surname. He was a wonderful man, had great humour and got stuck right in carrying people down to the heliport, through the rubble and over collapsed buildings.

"I am thankful for the support and the miracle that my grandson wasn’t killed. It is something I won’t forget."

Dr Latham and Ellen McNeil carry out volunteer work as they travel by yacht. Before Thailand, they did child health and hearing checks in Samoa and also worked in Cambodia.