News from friends hit by tsunami - Thailand

[pantouflard]

Finally heard from my friends via email that they are hurt but not badly - just very banged up. You can imagine my relief! Here are snippets from their accounts of the event, if you're interested.

Friend #1
"We were on an idyllic beach in Railay when we saw the wave
coming . . . we saw this beautiful perfect curl coming
down from the north, but it wasn't possible to give it any
scale at first. (It wasn't as big as at Phi Phi or Phuket by
personal accounts and by the TV or I wouldn't be writing
you now.) We ran, climbed a 4 foot seawall, then a huge wave
pushed us between two bungalows and I was pinned to a
concrete bench that xxxxx was already clinging to. THis was
lucky, very lucky.

After the tsunami we limped around trying to find a way
back to our bungalows, but we were warned that a second,
possibly 30 meter wave was coming and we climbed about
150 feet up a mountainside with about 200 other people and
stayed for several hours. When we got back to the
bungalow, our stuff was there, the bungalow OK, but the beachfront
restaurants, shops, etc were semi-demolished with broken
boats smashed up on them.

The infrastructure here is intact. People are pouring in from
other beaches, islands, including Koh Phi Phi and
Phuket, which were heavily devastated, hundreds or
thousands dead and missing. There are lots of farangs
(foreigners) limping around like us with iodined scrapes
and bandages. Not your normal adventure travel tale: more
like a horror film. Our spirits are fine, though. We do
feel lucky. 30 seconds would have done us in."

Friend #2
"I'd just gotten back to koh yao noi about 5 minutes before. As
I was tyeing off the boat the water dropped out and beached
half the boat. It seemed very odd to me, but I still wasn't
thinking tsunami.

After a few minutes of sorting my gear I looked up to
see the 5-6 meter face peeling in to the beach. For
an instant it looked soo beautiful ....soo blue and
powerful, then it was off to the races ...I grabbed my
friend's 7 year old son and ran up...a big dump truck was
passing...we jumped inside, the driver still hadn't
looked up , then we raced a little ways up the road to a
high spot with the water covering the road. Out the
window I could see my boat flung up into the trees,
flipped over ...totally destroyed and presently about 2.5
meters up a coconut tree.

Now I realize this island was actually very well
protected by the phuket peninsula and the damage has not
been too severe, mostly the locals are mourning for their
families which were out in phi phi , phuket or this small
island near here, koh hong."

[Blue Diadem]

1. I'm glad they are safe!

I can't begin to imagine the sheer terror they must have felt.

[xxqqqzme]

2. thanx 4 sharing

first hand accounts R always powerful.

[HEAVYHEART]

3. Whew

I'm glad your friends are ok!

[pantouflard]

4. Thanks for the kind words n/t