A friend forwarded this e-mail from a survivor of the tsunami. I've read many accounts, but this made the most impact on me:
From: Gene Edgar <ebedgar@u.washington.edu>
Date: January 8, 2005 2:29:43 PM GMT-05:00
Sitting around, day after Christmas,
just staring at
the TV - some movie we've seen before. Mid-morning,
post-breakfast
stupor controlling Karin and me. The power flickers
and we moan. We'll
have to get up and do something? Then we hear some
yelling outside.
I look out the front door, still puffed up with
pride about our new
house, just 400 feet back from the beach. People are
running up our
street yelling. It looks like a fire at the large
two story resort
that effectively blocks our view of the beach. Smoke
and dust coming
up and all these people.
Then a small line of really brown water comes
rolling towards us.
That's weird. But I reckon it must be some strange
full moon high
tide. So we go upstairs so we don't get wet.
I look out the window and try and take some
pictures. There is a
quiet rumble to it, like those white noise
generators that are
supposed to help you sleep. The water is getting
higher and higher and
then it destroys our friends cement bungalow! Then
our front door
caves in, and then water is coming up the stairs!
HOLY SHIT. This was
the last point my brain worked for a long time.
We try and throw a mattress out the window to float
on, but the water
is rising too fast, and out the window we climb.
It's all going so
fast. It's faster than conscious thought and by the
time we are on our
second story roof, the water is coming out the
window. We jump.
Karin doesn't jump at the same time or did I jump
too early? We're
separated. I scream her name, but the crashing
roiling water mutes me.
I can't hear her. I scream and scream until I get
hit by something and
pulled under. I can't swim to the top, I pull myself
through trash and
wood to the surface and off I go.
Ahead are trees wrapped in flotsam and as I look a
Thai guy is
struggling to get free of it, as I pass by at 30 MPH
I realize he is
impaled on a piece of wood and can't even scream.
My brain shut down when Karin disappeared, and now
all I can do is
survive. Something triggers and I swim. I swim to
avoid the trees
which will trap me, possibly kill me. It seems that
I am atop the
crest of the tsunami, which is less like a wave than
a flood.
From on high I can see the water hit buildings,
then rise, then watch
the buildings collapse into piles of concrete and
rebar. I swim to
avoid these. Left and right I paddle, looking ahead
the whole time
trying to figure the hazards. None of this is
conscious, this isn't me
thinking it out, it's some recessed part of the
brain coming out and
taking control.
I was busy seeing the weird things, like massive
diesel trucks being
rolled end over end. Or the car launched through the
2nd storey wall
of a former luggage shop. Or the person high up in a
standing tree in
a lurid orange thong. Or the older foreigner that
got stuck in the
wood and steel wrapped around a tree, and then his
body torn off while
his head remained. I couldn't scream.
I was pulled under, my pants caught on something, I
decided that this
was neither the place nor time for me to die, and
ripped my pants off.
I surfaced into a hunk of wood which cut my
forehead.
A 5 gallon water bottle sped by, and I wrapped
myself around it like
a horny German Shepard on a Chihuahua. I was passing
people with
bleeding faces and caked in refuse. Some people
reached out to me, and
I back, but the water was too fast and erratic. Some
people screamed
for help and I told them to swim. Some people just
stared with empty
eyes, watching what happened, but seeing nothing.
Some were just
floating bodies.
At some point, I passed a guy, cut on his cheek,
holding onto big
piece of foam. We just made eye contact and shrugged
apathetically at
each other. Then I turned ahead to watch fate. When
I looked back he
was gone.
Trees were pulled down, and their flotsam added to
the flow. I was
hit by a refrigerator and pushed towards a building
that was
collapsing. I swam and swam and swam and swam and
still was pushed
right towards a huge clump of jagged sticks and
metal. I was pulled
under, kicked towards the mass, cut my feet and
kicked again. I popped
up on the other side, spun around and pulled under
again.
Down there, I knew it was not the time, and I
pulled my way up
through the floating rubbish of my former town. I
pulled and pulled
and my lungs ached for air. I flashed on Star Wars,
the trash
compactor scene, and had some big grin in the back
of head as I popped
up. Sucking shitty water and air deep in my lungs.
This went on for weeks. Time simply left the area
alone. I grabbed
the edge of a mattress and floated. Breathing, just
breathing.
Awareness brought back by the sound and look of a
water fall. Trying
to push up onto the mattress more and more, and it
took my weight less
and less. Tumbling over the edge, sucked under
again, and out I shot,
swirled into a coconut grove, where the water seemed
to have stopped.
There was even a dyke like wall around the grove.
The water spun and churned, but went no where, and
got no higher. It
wasn't swimming, or climbing, but something in
between. I made my way
to the land. Every step had to be careful with
broken glass
everywhere, and sheet metal poking out. It was a
long slow struggle.
The low rumble had stopped, and now is the
occasional creak of wood
on wood and metal scraping. Moans came across the
new brown lake. A
small boy was in a tree crying, asking for his
parents in Norwegian.
I climbed up onto the dyke and looked around. I
screamed out for
Karin, only getting responses in Thai. I stood
there, panting, trying
to find a thought, anything. As I came back to earth
I needed to pee.
The first thing I did after surviving the tsunami
was piss! Along
limps an older Thai guy, finds me, naked atop a dyke
amid the
destruction, covered in mud and filth - pissing. He
didn't even
smile.nor did I.
I spent the next minutes running from high point to
high point
screaming out for Karin. If I made it, she could
too. There was no
response from her. I found plenty of other people,
and helped who I
could, but always looking across this vast area of
new lakes for her
head.
Through the trees was a PT boat, a large steel
police cruiser. The
boat and I had been brought more than a kilometer
(2/3 mile) inland.
I was standing near a tree, hoping for a clue,
anything to say she
was out there somewhere. A small boy in a tree
whimpered, and I pulled
him down. We went inland. There were houses, still
standing, a whole
neighborhood atop a rise that was untouched. Just
feet away were cars
wrapped around trees. I handed them the boy.
I had finished my medic training exactly one month
before, so I went
to work. Pulling people out of mud, from under
houses. One car,
upright against the trunk of a tree still had the
driver. He was dead.
It went on. Before this I had only seen a dead body
once or twice.
That was remedied very quickly. I pulled people out
of the water, only
to have them choke and die right there. I would take
someone's pulse,
scream for help, then find that they had died before
we could do
anything. It was beyond any nightmare or fear I have
ever had.
An older Thai woman came up to me with a pair of
shorts and averted
eyes. She was ashamed that I was totally naked. I
smirked and slipped
them on. She smiled and scurried away. Was it the
bright white ass or
the fear shriveled cock that had embarrassed her?
Roaming the former streets looking for foreigners
to send to the
higher ground, a place where we could all meet and
tend to wounds.
After an hour the Thais came screaming out of the
mud saying there was
another wave coming , and flying into the hills. We
were left alone.
Those that could walk did, the rest were carried. We
made a new base,
higher and safer. And the same thing happened again.
And again.
Eventually we ended up in the jungle at a park,
where there was water
and high ground. It was messy. Eventually there were
about 300
foreigners, about 120 of whom were injured pretty
severely with broken
limbs and ribs, near-drownings, everyone had gashes
of some kind,
severed fingers or toes and shock everywhere.
There was no medicine, no tools, no scissors, no
bandages. Nothing
but well water (of questionable cleanliness) and
some sticks and
clothes. I tried to find anyone medically trained.
It was only the
diving instructors who all had basic first aid. So
we cleaned with the
water, we broke sticks and set bones and talked
people into a
relatively calm place. If someone was severely cut,
we used their own
clothing to mend the wounds. It was a horror story.
The floor was
covered in blood, people were moaning, or vomiting
or asking us to
help them. And more arrived with every new wave of
cars and trucks
fleeing the "next wave".
After hours of this, we got news of helicopters
evacuating the
injured. So everyone rushed towards the trucks. I
had to scream and
push and pull people out of the way. The ones who
needed the evac the
most were the ones who couldn't get to the trucks.
After twenty
minutes of sorting through the priorities, and
feeling like we had a
handle on it, someone brought me to a girl who was
bleeding severely
out of her thigh and was in shock. No one had
brought her to our
little clinic area, they had left her in the back of
truck.
Finally, after a few helicopters had pulled out the
worst, I headed
back down.
Through rubber tree plantations, and coconut groves
we drove. It
seemed quiet and relaxed. At the last corner it was
devastation. The
road was clear and dry up to a certain point and
then it was a horizon
of rubble. I shuddered.
Someone on a scooter came up and asked for a
doctor. Everyone looked
at me! I jumped on and they took me up roads I never
knew existed, and
over bridges that were barely standing until I was
brought to five
foreigners in the middle of nowhere. One of them was
a good friend and
diving instructor. It was the first person I had
seen that I knew. It
was a total joy. He was banged up pretty bad, but he
got out and sent
off to the hospital. Then the Thais came roaring up
the hill, saying
there was another wave. We had to carry four more
people with broken
bones (including a broken hip) up a hill. There was
no wave. There
never was.
I stumbled back down, wandering through the town
looking for people
to help. I found only bodies. I found one with a
tattoo like Karin's
on a scooter under some rubble. I pulled her out,
and it was a Thai
woman. Still griping her scooter, mouth agape.
Eventually I made my way back to the dive shop I
worked at. We had
always whinged about how it was too far off the main
road, but it
survived. It was a center for the survivors. I
walked up to find
friends alive and things clean and organized.
I had been able to keep on, doing what I could to
help people, to
close out my mind to what was around me and look
only at what I was
doing, to not see the dead people, to not worry
about where Karin was.
I had held together so well.
When I found out Karin was alive it all fell apart.
I could smell the
destruction, the horror I had just walked through,
just lived through,
that she had lived through. My body shouted out all
the bruises and
cuts I had ignored. It all struck me and threw me to
the ground. It
was too much - I could no longer accept this.
We hugged and ate and slept. My feet were cut up, I
had small cuts
all over my body, and a sinus infection from all the
bad water.
Karin had gotten hold of a coconut tree, wrapped
herself around it
and never let go. She had a few bruises and small
cuts and a black
eye. I was ecstatic to see her like that. First time
I've been happy
to see a woman with a black eye.
Most of the rest of our friends had come through.
They had set up
first aid stations and help stations, organized food
and created a
center for people to meet. The diving community came
together and
became our support, our medical care, our food -
they did everything
they could to help and then some.
I can't help but give massive appreciation and even
a bit of awe to
several people. Whether you know them or not, these
are the true
heroes. Keith - he was tireless - for days, running
around, getting
medicine, doing first aid, cooking food, getting
clothes, talking to
the forlorn, coordinating doing everything he could.
His energy was
endless and bright.
Jim and Andrea opened the doors of their shop, and
clothed and housed
everyone they could. Joakim ran about grabbing
people, helping
wherever he could, evacuating people to the next
town, the whole while
wondering about the safety of his own family. And
the two DMT's that
helped me out - two guys who had just taken a first
aid class and then
had to deal with massive trauma, death and chaos.
And all the others -
this was not the work of just one or two people.
Of course the diving community at large shined like
a beacon over the
madness. When there was no one else, they all
stepped forward. I can't
help but swell with pride to count myself among
them.
The next day I went back to where my house had been
and surveyed the
damage. One bungalow nearby had been lifted up and
dropped on top of
another. The whole beach was visible, meaning all of
the two or three
story hotels that had lined it were gone. There was
a jet ski just
near our house. The bottom floor of our house was
gone, the upper
floor was missing a couple of walls. The only thing
left, was a
plastic Jesus doll I had bought as a joke.
So I was left with nothing in the world except my
own plastic Jesus.
The level of destruction is virtually impossible to
describe. On our
beach we had approx. 2500 hotel rooms. It looked to
me, that maybe 50
could still be called hotel rooms. The week between
Christmas and New
Year's is the busiest of the week. Without warning,
without an
evacuation plan the survival rates were minimal. The
wave at our house
was about 7 meters high (20 feet) and in some places
it was 10 meters
(30 feet) high. It wiped out the third floor of most
resorts. The
number of dead is astronomical, several thousand on
my beach alone. By
the second day you could smell it, and in the short
walk to my former
house, we passed about 10 bodies just strewn about.
Our final glance of the town was a cattle truck
stacked full of
wrapped up corpses. We wanted to go home.
In Bangkok most people got help pretty quick. The
Swedes, Germans and
English had charted flights for their citizens to
get home. The Thai
government gave free hotel rooms to survivors and
there were lists of
places to get food.
EXCEPT the Americans. I went in to find out what
help I could get - I
was able to get a replacement passport, a toothbrush
and a paperback
book. They said it was not their policy to arrange
flights home. I was
cut up, still covered in a pretty good layer of mud,
I had no home, no
money, no clothing (except some borrowed off Keith)
nothing at all,
and they could do nothing to help.
They did offer to let me borrow money, but they
would have to find
three people in America who would vouch for me, and
that process
should take less than a week. In the mean time I was
fucked. I was
destitute and rejected by the embassy. Karin was
with me (she's
Swedish) and said that I could still try and
emigrate to Sweden. I was
VERY tempted.
In these last days, watching politicians go on
about helping and
giving aide, but they won't even take care of their
own citizens? I am
very, very angry. All the other nations of the world
were taking care
of their own citizens! Eventually I got a flight
home with JAL - that
would be JAPAN airlines - not even an American
company, but a JAPANESE
company helped me get home.
I am still listed as neither found nor alive.
Before I left I had
spoken to the embassy twice on the phone, giving my
name so I would be
listed as alive so my family would not worry. I went
to the embassy
twice, once to get a passport to replace the one
lost in the tsunami,
and they never listed me as alive or found. I flew
out of the country
using said passport and am still not found. I went
to the hospital
three times, and, as of yesterday I am now listed as
injured (having
been in the states three days already). My family is
now waiting to
see how long it will take before they are notified
about my status. So
am I.
It does raise a good question - if I am missing or
dead, do I have to
pay taxes?
While spiteful about the embassy, I am grateful to
be alive, and that
those I care about are still alive. I still look
around and am in awe
at what just happened. I really feel like someone
has slipped me some
roofies and I woke up in America.
No real moral to this story.yet.
While not exactly destitute - I am rich in friends
- I am fairly
skint, as almost all my money, all my dive gear (my
income), as well
as my laptop (years of pictures and writing gone)
and most everything
else is probably floating somewhere near Burma.
<snip> (deleted personal appeal for funds, per forum rules)
I would further recommend going to
www.diveaid.co.uk. These are
divers helping divers. Most of our community, while
surviving, lost
everything. This is a great site with some news of
the area and those
affected.
My story is just one, there and 100,000's more far
worse off - I had
somewhere to fly to. Donations should be sent to
good charities, ones
that truly help. Doctors Without borders
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org and the
Thailand Red Cross
http://www.redcross.or.th/english/home/index.php4 were both there fast
and helping out immensely. I can't speak, or even
dream of what it
must be like in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Breathe.
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