WE SURVIVED THE CHRISTMAS TSUNAMI
WE SURVIVED THE CHRISTMAS TSUNAMI
Description
It’s Christmas 2004, and a group of friends is enjoying a laid-back holiday in Phuket, Thailand, when the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami strikes.
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Credits
Field Reporter
- Maria Makrh
Interviewee
- Kwstas Aulwniths
Podcast Producer
- Stayros Blaxos
Sound Designer
- Alex Retsis
Sound Editor
- Dhmhtrhs Papadakhs
Video Director
- Black Dogs Productions
Voiceover
- Nicholas Seymour Stathopoulos
My name is Kostas Avlonitis. I’m forty years old. I live in Markades, on Corfu.It was a spontaneous summer decision. I was sitting with two friends talking about how we wanted to go on a trip together, go somewhere before one of the three of us got married, started a family, or whatever. And we said we should look into going to Thailand some time. We found tickets, well, my friend found tickets via Egypt, and we booked them. We were really looking forward to it. We’d go there, stay there. We were going to Thailand! Phi Phi Lay, Pataya, Phuket, we would visit all of them... Or not. We decided we would just go and see, with no schedule at all. Nothing.
I remember that when we reached Bangkok it was really hot. So much traffic. I don’t remember if we stayed a day there, I think maybe. And then we left for Phuket. We got to Phuket, found a room and went out for the evening. The night life there is intense. A lot of clubs. It was great, beautiful... We went to bed in the morning at 4, 5, or 6... We woke up around midday and headed for the beach.
On the way there, we passed by some agencies that did day trips to Phi Phi Island, where they filmed ‘The Beach’ with Di Caprio, ‘James Bond’ and ‘The Island’. So, we get into the boat and head off for Phi Phi. It was so cool. It’s a great island. There’s a beach bar with hammocks. We were chilling on the beach, and it was just great. Quiet... Just a little music... It was paradise. Really. Just paradise.
It must have been Christmas Eve or the day before. Because it was Christmas, we had organised a party for that evening, a small group of us. There were three girls from Brazil, a couple from Italy... Anyway, there were around ten of us. They had lit a fire on the beach, ‘Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas’, we were drinking our vodka, dancing around the fire, and we had our party there on Christmas night... very cool. Anyway, a good time was had by all, and we went to sleep. Christmas night.
The next day dawned. I got up a little worse for wear, shook my head to clear it, and I saw the Thailand where we were last night drinking just outside, full of people running like crazy and screaming. Before we realised, before I realised what was happening, we heard this deafening noise. Something like ‘vvvvvv’, a hum... Giorgos, who was next to me, got out of bed and said, ‘It’s a tornado!’ That’s what he thought.
I got out of bed, and we opened the door. What we saw was this brown thing, about one, one and a half metres high, coming towards us at speed. Water... Water... We had no clue what had happened. What the hell was coming? How was it coming?
Before we had a clue what was happening, the water was up to our knees. Slowly... it started to rise faster. Marinos got up, and by the time he had got up, and Marinos had got out, the water was up to our chests. We’re talking in a few seconds. Not even a minute.
The first thing we did, that we thought of, as the water was coming over the balcony... Outside there was a fence. So, we climbed up and grabbed the top beam. The roof. The three of us held on there, and the water kept rising... Anyway, if I remember right, the water came up to our necks. It came up to somewhere, and then Giorgos said, ‘Guys, climb up, to the roof’.
And then, suddenly, we felt it going down. But it didn’t just go down... It didn’t go down slowly. I mean, it went down just as quickly as it came. You felt like something was pulling at you. That was when it was most difficult to hold on.
We were lucky that nothing hit us. I mean, all that water, whatever it had brought with it, and whatever it took with it after. It could have been sheets of metal from wherever, even a bed, whatever there was in front of the houses... Once the water had gone down and left, we looked at each other, ‘Are we OK?’
We went out of the room and looked around... We saw sea. My god! Where were the houses? What had happened here? We headed towards the beach and saw so many people shouting, some looking for members of their family; chaos! People were crying, shouting, some were injured, covered in blood... On some houses, in the middle of the town, we saw a boat on the roof. The jetty was gone, just broken to pieces. The guys had sandals, I didn’t. We were walking on debris, right? We walked on... there wasn’t even a stone to step on, I mean the small stones, no grass, nothing. Just debris. We tried to walk carefully, so we didn’t cut our feet.
There was still water coming, and we saw it coming again in small waves. I mean it was coming wave by wave by wave, and rising slowly-slowly, slowly-slowly. At that point, we took our things and started climbing. We said, ‘Let’s head up’. We climbed up to the restaurant. Anyway, the water rose a little, went down again... It went away and then the sea level went back to normal.
We were up in the restaurant, at those little tables, anyway, those that were left. At some point, Marinos said, ‘It got the dolls from the shop!’ Down below, we saw two or three dolls. Only they weren’t dolls. Yeah. They were bodies.
Especially one of them... This Thai guy jumped in. He tied a rope around his waist, and jumped into the water, and we pulled the women out. The sight was, OK, I can’t... She was bruised and swollen from the water... you know what a dead body looks like. That’s when we lost it. We realised that something really bad had happened.
What we thought was, OK, we’ve got to let them know at home. But how? There were no other phones. So, we found an Italian, and we asked him to borrow his phone and sent a message back that we were OK. ‘We are OK. Don’t worry’. That’s all we sent.
That evening, we saw that everyone went up on the mountain to sleep. Obviously, they’d go to the mountain. They were scared that something else might happen. We still didn’t know what had happened, we hadn’t spoken to anyone off the island or found anyone who had contact and knew what had happened. We didn’t even know that it was a tidal wave.
We went up the mountain. We slept as much as we could sleep on stones. We were cold because the night was... It was very cold. I had some cuts on my feet that hurt, they stung... In the morning, at dawn, we got up quickly to head down, to wait for the ships to come out, because we saw a ship coming. ‘Let’s get out of here’.
The first shock I had, when we got down, was the bodies covered in sheets. You knew they were bodies, dead, anyway. They’d covered them with sheets because with 40, 42 and 45 degrees, there was the danger of disease.
I think the boat we got on took us to Phuket. We were heading for Phuket. Anyway, I remember when we were sitting on the jetty, what was left of it, we found some other Greeks, and they would take us to the embassy, and from there they would take us by bus to the airport.
We went to the embassy, and there were a lot of Greeks. ‘What happened?’ ‘What the hell happened?’ There was the first time that we saw TV, and we saw what had happened. It goes without saying that we just stood there, gob smacked. There was no... The whole of Phuket had been destroyed! They showed photographs; they showed photographs on the reports of when it happened, and we saw Phuket destroyed, Phi Phi destroyed.
The next day, we got on a massive plane. The journey back was the best journey I’ve ever done. When we got to the airport, there were some ladies in front of us who ran off to fix themselves up. ‘We need to look our best’. Why? Ah, there were cameras outside. Anyway, as soon as the doors of the airport opened, flash! Cameras. Reporters. For god’s sake... We were scared and slipped away round a corner. The ladies in front of us were interviewed, and we just sneaked away round the corner.
I was feeling... very mixed up about everything I’d seen. I wasn’t in the mood for crowds. I wasn’t in the mood for much, I was very... it had really got to me. I wanted to leave, to leave, to go somewhere I felt safe. I wanted to know that I would go somewhere, and I’d be, I’d be home; I’d be safe; I’d be there. I mean, what had been through wasn’t nothing. That first night, I remember I kept waking up. I mean, I would go down to Ai Girogis, to the sea, and if there was a wind, I would keep my distance. I had some mental issues.
It goes without saying that every 26 December we call each other to wish ‘Happy Christmas’, the three of us. I’m telling you, what we saw on that island was exactly like someone lifted us up and set us down as soon as it was over. I mean, all the debris from outside all the houses, was all washed back, but nothing hit us. Not even something that left a scratch as it passed by. It was really like there was something surrounding us, and nothing came near us. What can I say? A second chance? A second life? It was like someone had said, ‘It’s not your time yet’. That’s all.