By Alexa Moses
- Boxing Day tsunami 2004: survivor remembers 10 years on
- Tranquil and isolated for centuries, until the big waves came
This article was first published on December 29, 2004
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. We were about to gather our things to go down to the beach.
The remains of a resort in Khao Lak, north of Phuket.Credit: Anthony Johnson
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.
"I don't know," he replied and the noise began.
It sounded like an aeroplane taking off. A roaring that swelled and dipped, completely surrounding us.
Devastation: An aerial view of the Thai resort town of Khao Lak a few days after the Boxing Day tsunami struck in December 2004. Credit: Reuters
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.
Namkem village north of Khao Lak in Thailand which was destroyed by the tsunami. Credit: Jacky Ghossein
We ran to the door, terrified that when we opened it water would rush in. The hall was also ankle-deep in water.
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.
Satellite images show the change in the coast line in the area around the Khao Lak tourist destination in southern Thailand.
Suddenly we heard car horns, people screaming "help" in Thai, German, Swedish, banging on walls, sobbing.
We stood up on the roof alone, shaking, with the red corrugated iron slope of the roof shielding us from the water.
Suddenly we heard car horns, people screaming "help" in Thai, German, Swedish, banging on walls, sobbing.
One of the resorts in Khao Lak before the devastating tsunami hit.
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.
Survivor: Alexa MosesCredit: Tony Walters
We were waiting for a second wave, we could hear the thundering again. Would it be higher? Were we all about to die? We were silent, quivering and straining to hear. We stayed up on the roof like that for an hour.
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.
But the thought that stayed with us most was of one nine-year-old Swedish girl we had smiled at before the tsunami struck.
She had thick glasses and long brown hair and was always reading a book, even as she walked to the beach in her red swimming costume.
Later, we found her parents halfway up the mountain. They had found one of their three children but the little girl and her six-year-old brother had vanished.
The father, a strong Swedish man, was shaking and broken. He was carrying the youngest child who was almost mute.
The mother was bandaged and weary and beyond tears. That was just one story among the thousands.