Boxing Day tsunami: As horror dawned, survival the easy part

FOR Bert Gerbrands, the worst part of the Boxing Day tsunami was not being swept out to sea on a giant wave.

FOR Bert Gerbrands, the worst part of the Boxing Day tsunami was not being swept out to sea on a giant wave, struggling for air as he was dragged underwater or the frustrating hours fighting to get back to shore.

It was the next day, when he ventured from his hilltop recovery spot to the local temple near the Thai beach resort where he had worked as the manager.

“When you are hit by the wave, there’s not much you can do and the adrenalin is running,” he said. “The next day when I went to the temple — that was the sad part because all those locals there were terrified of the ghosts and the spirits. All those bodies were coming in, one after the other, hundreds of them.”

Mr Gerbrands survived clinging to a boat cushion, spending three hours at sea struggling through debris to get back to Koh Phra Thong, on Thailand’s Andaman coast.

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He describes the wave’s forceful pull as being taken “like tissue paper in the wind”.

He tried unsuccessfully to rescue two colleagues with his makeshift liferaft as they cried out in the distance. When he eventually returned to shore, he found the resort largely destroyed.

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Mr Gerbrands sheltered on a nearby hill with other survivors before making his way to the local village the next day.

It was the start of a grim task, as he spent the next five days viewing every corpse found on the island to identify the resort’s guests and staff.

He recognised 12 faces among the bodies, with one baby who was never found.

Mr Gerbrands is still amazed by the monks who tenderly washed each corpse with their bare hands. “After two or three days, the smell got worse and worse,” he said. “Those monks — I couldn’t believe it. No masks, bare feet, standing there with bare hands. It was just incredible.”

Mr Gerbrands now manages Turtle Cove Beach Resort near Port Douglas in north Queensland. He has not been back to Koh Phra Thong since the tsunami, though he visits Bangkok regularly.

“You have to get on with life. When Boxing Day comes, I think about the hard work in my resort here. I don’t even think about the tsunami.”