Five Years After The Tsunami The Pain And Fear Remain

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Five years on, but the pain and fear remain

By PONGPHON SARNSAMAK

THE NATION

Published on December 20, 2009

Five years after the Indian Ocean tsunami ravaged six southern coastal provinces and swept more than 5,000 to their deaths, 60-year-old Phang Nga resident Yupa Srisiri cannot forget the day her six-year-old nephew was snatched from her embrace.

"I still remember that day and I want to forget it, but I can't," she said with a trembling voice and teary eyes.

Now she's afraid to walk on the beach and stay alone at home.

In the early morning of December 26, 2004, The tsunami struck the Andaman coast without warning, causing massive damage in Ranong, Trang, Phang Nga, Krabi, Phuket and Satun.

The killer wave crashed into her while she was riding a pickup with her husband on their way back home to Ban Nam Khem village - the community hardest hit by the tsunami, with about 800 lives lost.

Her pickup rolled over and at that moment her nephew was ripped from her embrace. A month later, she found him, dead.

"At that time, I did not want to live any more. I had just lost one of my three sons before I lost my nephew.

"I don't want to talk about it any more. I want to forget about it."

To heal her wounded heart, three years ago, Yupa made the decision to work as a maid at the Don Bosco Home, which provides assistance, food, shelter and education to 85 tsunami orphans.

"I'm happy to be with the children and they help me a lot to forget the nightmare that has haunted my life," she said.

She lives in Ban Nam Khem with her two sons but she can't stay alone. Sometimes she gets depressed and needs anti-depressants. She cannot go for a walk on the beach, or even see the seashore.

Five years ago, she could remain on a boat in the ocean for a whole day but now she's frightened when the sky looks dark in the daytime.

Even when the sky is blue, the giant swell remains a nightmare for 46-year-old Saisunee Tongsakul, a resident of Phuket's Ban Had Kamala village, whose home and property were totally destroyed.

"I'm scared by the sound of the wind," she said. "There's no way I can walk on the beach."

Even though she didn't lose anyone in her family after The tsunami crashed into her home near Kamala Beach, when the flashback starts - that she couldn't do anything when asked for help - she goes crazy. "Someone asked me to help but I could not. I told them to swim but they could not," she said.

Now she always monitors the weather forecasts. She said she always runs to a higher place when there's a report about a strong quake and only comes down when the authorities lift The tsunami warning.

Every December 26 she has to prepare herself and seal all family documents with plastic.

According to recent research by the Thailand Centre of Excellence for Life Sciences, which studied the mental health of victims in the tsunami-affected areas one month after the tragedy, 1,054 of the 3,133 samples suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 447 people suffered from depression and 353 from PTSD-related depression.

In a bid to find a treatment for PTSD, the centre performed whole genome scans on 3,000 blood specimens from tsunami survivors to study whether there is any link between genes and PTSD.

The genetic data were sent to the Riken Centre for Genomic Medicine in Japan for analysis. Prof Nantika Tawichachart, who leads the team of researchers, said the result is expected in the near future.

-- The Nation 2009/12/20

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