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Book helps heal pain of tsunami

ALMOST two years after the Boxing Day tsunami, Kimina Lyall still cannot believe how her intelligence failed her. "Everyone says the same thing. They can't believe we stood there staring at it coming in."

Healing words: Kimina Lyall at the launch with Helen Garner. Picture: David Geraghty
Healing words: Kimina Lyall at the launch with Helen Garner. Picture: David Geraghty

ALMOST two years after the Boxing Day tsunami, Kimina Lyall still cannot believe how her intelligence failed her. "Everyone says the same thing. They can't believe we stood there staring at it coming in."

Lyall was in a business meeting on Golden Buddha Beach - a 10,000ha island paradise off Thailand's west coast - when the first wave crashed on to the beach.

"I thought a 747 had been blown out of the sky or fallen into the ocean," she said. "There was a moment of absolute silence around the meeting before we all rushed to the beach."

There had been talk of an earthquake over breakfast at the resort. But no one predicted the horror that was to follow a rupture in the earth's crust almost 700km from the retreat shared by Lyall - at the time The Australian's Southeast Asia correspondent - and her partner, JP.

Standing on the beach as the first wave receded, the group simply stared out to sea. "Perhaps we were in a state of advanced shock, like rabbits caught in the headlights of a car. Then someone said, 'Look out there. There's water breaking on the horizon'.

"Some people started running around saying to get to higher ground, but even as we did I couldn't help thinking I was over-reacting," said Lyall, whose book, Out of the Blue - Facing the Tsunami, was launched by Helen Garner in Melbourne last night.

Lyall was thrust into the biggest story of her career and at the same time became part of the tale herself, a dilemma she deals with in the book and one with which she is still coming to terms.

Writing the book has helped the healing process even though she initially thought it was the cause of her emotional pain. "(But) when I wrote a chapter it was as if I put that part of it to bed," she said.

The book contains stories such as that of the survival of four members of a Swedish family, including a three-year-old who clung to her nanny's back in swirling waters. Her 14-month-old brother was swept away.

Lyall says the waters raged for a relatively short time - about 20 minutes - before they started to subside. A common misunderstanding, though, is that three separate waves landed at intervals. "It was more like half a dozen increasingly higher steps of water. One did not go out to sea before the other struck."

The emotional impact of the tragedy was not felt for months.

But the moment when she most felt the loss came as she watched television images of the devastation caused in the US by hurricane Katrina. "Seeing those people desperate for help and not able to get it. I just fell apart. I could not write for six months."

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/book-helps-heal-pain-of-tsunami/news-story/f761e69180e77f51ba2c67024b12c398