There is no aid from outside until now and he is now heading to Pidie, the nearest city to find some help including to get better communication with outer region. The city is still isolated and the only effective transportation to the location is by helicopter since all the bridges were destroyed in the quake and tsunami wave. He said the death toll in the region has reached at least 40,000 people and 80% of the city was destroyed, including the military facilities and several patrol boats were still missing. I received an email from a friend who is currently about 20km from Meulaboh city in Western Aceh through his satellite phone -it's the nearest port to the epicentre of the earthquake.
People who are hungry tried to break in one grocery store only to find food covered in mud and water and bodies of people who couldn't escape at the time the tsunami hit. Help hasn't arrived yet even there in the capital of Aceh. The city's like a huge dumpster, dead bodies still scattered everywhere, debris blocking the streets with possibly victims of the tsunami in those piles. The Governor of Phuket sent out pleas for donations of food and clothes, which the local population immediately responded to, by our standards these people are very poor under normal circumstances, yet within 24 hrs a mountain of local aid had been collected. I had to gently let them know that in most cases their hotels did not exist any more. Many of them were very bewildered often asking me if they could return to their hotels. I have been helping with the relief effort in a very modest way translating mainly for Spanish tourists with little or no spoken English. Ten minutes later the Thais who had been surveying the damage to their boats, now well inland, started racing along the shore gesturing frantically and yelling, "Again.
This was the first wave and it sent speedboats flying across the tops of the waves like matchsticks. Seconds later another white wall rounded the other side of the island, the waves surging towards each other. Eight men had helped to carry the car out of the waterįirst a seething mass of broiling water crowned by a white crest came round the shore from one direction. The old man next fell in the water and a second time too, near the step of the hotel. When he opened the car door to get his dad out, water just gushed into the car. My brother-in-law next went to rescue his dad, who was inside the car which was also floating in the lobby of the hotel. Furniture was floating in the water and my aunt was hanging on to a floating table for dear life, glad when it struck a pillar and remained stationery. They had hardly entered the hotel nearby when they were submerged by this huge wave which came dashing over them and into the hotel. My brother-in-law and his parents had got engulfed by the "killer" wave - the second one.
A motorist shouted to us that the roads were closed and that "the sea had come in."Įveryone was running frantically and urged us to beat it as the sea was coming further inwards. Suddenly we came upon the people of the area who looked all flustered and were running hither and thither carrying bags and babies. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining brilliantly. Although we planned to leave at 8AM we were delayed by an hour or so, searching for the car keys. They were unable to hold them since they hadn't been able to grab them under the water.
they had lost their small children in front of their very eyes and seen them floating to the sea. We were lucky to escape, but before long, mothers came crying. We saw the wave strike just 100 metres away from us. People had very confused emotions and nobody knew what to do next. At the time we just thought it may be a common thing, but then suddenly two men came running in front of the vehicle and told us to turn. We asked what happened, they told us the sea came on to the road. Then we saw lot of people gathered at the beach and some were running along the coastal line too. My husband, my child and myself were driving along the coast in our car. In the three days we were waiting to leave we saw many examples of ordinary Sri Lankans, many of whom had lost friends, family and livelihoods while trying to help others who were worse off. We were shown the local mosque where hundreds of locals were cooking, collecting and distributing food and supplies for those less fortunate. Amid all this death and destruction these people were trying to help us. We were taken up a hill to a place of safety where we were welcomed by a family and told we could stay as long as we needed to. Miraculously a fleet of small vehicles driven by local people arrived outside the hotel and we jumped into a minibus.
0 kommentar(er)
