Steve – Page 1568 – Steve and Judy's Travels!

Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 4:37 PM
Hi, A firsthand tsunami report. —–Original Message—–
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:43 AM
Subject: Account of Tsunami
I went to highschool with Vei Chi – she barely escaped the tsunami in Sri
Lanka.
>
>Dear all,
>
>sorry for the impersonal email, some of you might not know and some
>do, but just wanted to let you know that we are back to Hong Kong
>safely from Sri Lanka.
>
>We were in an area called Yala in Sri Lanka (it’s in the southern
>coast of Sri Lanka and one of the worst affected areas) when the
>tsunami hit. We were caught in the middle of it but managed to escape.
>Luckily we were in Yala Safari National park when it happened, but the
>tsunami also hit inside the park. The 7 of us had to climb on top of
>our jeep and as the water rushed into about 8 feet the jeep was
>immersed and started to buckle, at this point we though we were about
>to get dragged away by the current but then the water began to recede.
>At this point we had no idea what had happened and were being told of
>possible sand dune’s bursting or melting icebergs. The Jeep couldn’t
>be started and we began to walk we started joking about it when the
>driver and guide began to pick up all the fish that had been thrown
>onto the road to cook for their families that night. At this point a
>second wave began to come in and we were told to run as fast as we
>could to higher ground, we managed to avoid getting caught up in this
>one but when we got there were a number of locals and tourists who
>were also there and a number of people who were badly injured. Getting
>any accurate info at this point was impossible and communication with
>the locals, who don’t speak much English, was difficult. We did know
>however that the whole area we were in was surrounded by water and
>there was no way out at this point, we started to get really worried
>when the locals began climbing trees for fear of another wave.
>
>After about an hour there we were told to get in the back of a van and
>were taken to a large rock, were we stayed for another couple of
>hours, we could see the majority of the surrounding coastline being
>battered by huge waves. There were a number of injured people there
>also including one Japanese woman whose head had been cracked open and
>who was missing her 3 year old son (who we later found out died).
>Seeing the waves batter into the coastline and all these injured
>people with their stories of being washed into, what is effectively
>jungle land, and missing friends and family made it very very scary,
>We still had no idea at this point the scale of the thing. We were
>then bundled into a 6 seater van with about 16 other people and driven
>for 90 minutes to a small town inland called Tissa and the house of
>one of the staff of the hotel. We were told that the hotel we were
>staying at was completely flattened and wiped out and 75% of people in
>the hotel were dead. This place is a Safari hotel on the beach and
>basically anybody who didn’t go on safari that day died. At this point
>I want to say how amazing these people are, there were men, women and
>children screaming and crying having heard there family members and
>friends had died and there were about 50 people in this little shanty
>house and they kept coming to us with tea and biscuits and telling us
>they would get us to safety. The courage and generosity of these and
>many other people we met over the next 4 days will stay with me for a
>long time.
>
>We were crowding around a tiny tv set listening to the Sri Lankan news
>and one of our local heroes Kumel, was translating, we soon realised
>the scale and magnitude of the devastation, not only in Sri Lanka but
>across the SE Asia region. The enormity of what happened was beginning
>to dawn on us, as was our situation, we had lost our luggage, clothes,
>tickets, passports and most of our money, we had two phones between us
>and about 100 quid in US or Sri Lanka Rupees, we had credit cards but
>as you quickly find out these things aren’t much use when all the
>phone lines are down.
>
>We were then taken to a little guest house that evening and started to
>try and get in touch with our embassies, work, families and friends on
>the two mobiles we had, connections were difficult and we had no
>mobile chargers. We were told by the corporate security people at
>Merrill Lynch’s and by the British Embassy to get to Colombo as
>quickly as possible. After spending 8 hours trying to get a car to
>drive us the some 350Km to Colombo from the south coast through inland
>mountain roads, we finally made it to Colombo on the 28th. Colombo
>wasn’t that badly affected but there was obviously a sense of panic
>and alarm there too, as the whole country was in a state of national
>emergency. We then had to get to our relevant embassies to get travel
>documents. Merrill’s had made sure that we had our flight booking
>secured for the 29th and they also managed to get us into a hotel.
>Just as we were starting to calm down, we got a message that the
>driver who was with us for the first 4 days, who was this beautiful
>Sri Lankan man called Christianthan, who we laughed and joked with,
>was found dead. I had asked him to come and meet us in our hotel in
>Yala, as we flew down. He was driving down the coast when it happened.
>He was married with two children.
>
>We just got home about an hour ago and the whole experience was so
>surreal, frightening, horrific and sad. I cannot begin to tell you how
>lucky we are to have got out of this tragedy unharmed.
>
>So all in all we are ok.
>
>But, we have just left a country that has been devastated by this with
>the death toll in Sri Lanka alone at 25,000 and the numbers expected
>to rise to over 100,000 in the region. Once all the bodies are found
>the next problem the are likely to face is the diseases that can come
>with such a large number of dead who cannot be buried and homeless who
>have no access to clean water. The WHO is already saying the death
>toll could double due to this alone.
>
>We are trying to contact the family of our driver and to see if we can
>do anything to help, we plan to send money and anything else we can.
>
>If there’s one thing I can ask you all, at the start of this new year
>is to PLEASE PLEASE send whatever you can to any of the charity or aid
>organizations that are trying to help, I am sure there are a number of
>hotlines were money can be donated. We have seen things that we never
>thought we would see and it was awful, truly awful, we managed to get
>out. Tens of thousands of people didn’t. Many more are still suffering
>and will continue to do so. Please do what you can.
>
>Take Care all of you. Have a Happy New Year.
>
>love,
>Veh Chi
>

Enough of the Rio Grande Valley. It’s as far south as we can go, and it’s
the warmest part of Texas, but it’s not our favorite place to be. The
birding is unparalleled and that’s why we go there. Otherwise, it’s a
little on the crummy side. We went north, back to Port Aransas for a few days to take care of some
business and one last visit to the beach. Port Aransas. Mustang Island.
It’s still mostly undeveloped and undiscovered. It’s not crummy at all. From there we drove all day to Ft Stockton, five hundred miles. Still in
Texas, but now it’s West Texas. We’re not here for anything. Just passing
through. Someday we’ll take the side-trip south from here to visit Big Bend
National Park. We still haven’t been there. We hear they have scaled
quail. After an overnight stop, we drove through the rest of West Texas and
into New Mexico. New Mexico. We mean to work here someday…., if we can
get Arkansas out of the picture. We drove through most of New Mexico and
stopped in Lordsburg for the night. Haven’t done anything but drive the
last couple days. Found some killdeer in the field last night. White
winged doves. Meadowlarks. Cactus wrens. Yellow rumped warblers. Tonight. Nothing. No birds. Nice quiet campground. Met a few people.
Met a lady walking her cat. When we saw a lady with a martini glass in her
hand, walking a cat on a leash, in the campground tonight, we thought it
might be the same lady we saw in last night’s campground with a martini
glass in her hand, walking a cat. Know what? We were right! It’s the same
lady. Imagine that. She’s headed the same direction we are. West. Tomorrow? West again. Arizona.