The Washington Post
Posted 3/29/2005 12:00:00 AM

Sea SurgesFrom Massive Quake Kill Over 13,000 Across South Asia

It Seemed Likea Scene From the Bible

In India, DeathRoars In From The Ocean

Sea Surges From Massive Quake Kill Over 13,000 Across South Asia

Dec. 26, 2004

By Alan Sipress and Peter S. Goodman
The Washington Post

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A gargantuan earthquake centered off the westernend of the Indonesian archipelago unleashed a series of tsunamis Sunday thatcrashed into coastal towns, fishingvillages and tourist resorts from Sri Lanka to India, Thailand and Malaysia,killing more than 13,000 people in at least nine countries and leaving thousandsmissing.

The 9.0 magnitude quake was the strongest in 40 years and the fourth- most-powerfulsince 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The resulting convulsion in the vast Indian Ocean was felt as far away as EastAfrica, more than 3,000 miles from the epicenter, where fishermen were strandedand resorts were closed by the surging tides.

Walls of water as high as 30 feet littered the shorelines of southern Asiancountries with death and debris. The toll was most devastating along the coastsof Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, where hundreds of bodies washed back ashoreand entire villages were demolished.

The initial quake struck the western end of Indonesia's Sumatra island at 6:58a.m. local time, flattening buildings and sending a wall of water higher thanthe tops of coconut palms into the towns and villages in the province of Aceh,witnesses said. The epicenter was located 155 miles southeast of the provincialcapital of Banda Aceh and 200 miles west of Medan, Sumatra.

Indonesian Health Ministry officials put the toll in Aceh and the neighboringprovince of North Sumatra at nearly 4,500 and predicted more victims wouldbe discovered after rescue teams reached remote hamlets cut off by the disaster.In Indonesia, as elsewhere throughout the region, it was impossible to determinethe exact toll, which will likely not be known for some time.

In Sri Lanka, about 1,000 miles west of the epicenter, a massive surf strucknearly the entire coast of the island nation. National police reported thatat least 6,090 people were killed, many of them on the eastern shore near theport of Trincomalee, as well as in the south. About 170 children were fearedlost in an orphanage, the Associated Press reported.

The death toll elsewhere was estimated at 3,000 in India, as many as 1,000in Thailand, 48 in Malaysia, 10 in Burma, and 32 in the Maldives. In Somalia,on the eastern coast of Africa, at least nine people were reported killed byfloodwaters, according to news services. At least two children were killedin Bangladesh.

At least three Americans were among the dead -- two in Sri Lanka and one inThailand, according to Noel Clay, a State Department spokesman. He said a numberof other Americans were injured, but he had no details.

In Aceh, the tsunami "destroyed buildings, homes, markets and streetsin almost all coastal areas," said Mauludi, an Indonesian Red Cross workernorth of the affected area. He recounted hearing what sounded like repeatedexplosions coming from the coast. When he left his home to investigate, hespotted a wave towering above the tree line about a mile inland. Military authoritiessaid they expected to retrieve many more corpses from the trees, where theyremained after the waters receded.

[More than 1 million people were left homeless in Indonesia, and rescuers onMonday combed seaside villages for survivors, the Associated Press reported.]

More than half the deaths in Indonesia were reported inBanda Aceh, where Tia Andarita, a telephone operator, said she watchedfrom her third-floorofficeas two buildings collapsed and then seawater surged through the streets. "Manypeople were panicked and ran away to rescue themselves," she said.

Over the following hours, tsunamis triggered by the sudden, traumatic shiftin the seafloor raced across the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal toward coastalcommunities.

In Sri Lanka, witnesses reported seeing the sea retreat as swiftly as it hadstruck, leaving corpses floating in the lingering floodwaters and the remainsof homes, cars and fishing boats littering the beach. Roads, electricity andtelephone lines were severed. Reports that more than 1,000 had died in therebel-controlled northeast of Sri Lanka were impossible to confirm.

Thousands of people were unaccounted for in Sri Lanka. One million others,about 5 percent of the population, were displaced as many fled for higher ground,hauling their radios, televisions and other valuable possessions on bicyclesand seeking refuge in schools and temples.

"I think this is the worst-ever natural disaster in Sri Lanka," N.D.Hettiarachchi, director of the National Disaster Management Center, toldReuters.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a national disaster, deploying SriLanka's 20,000-member armed forces to help evacuate people from stricken areas,and appealed for international relief. Rescue efforts were proceeding slowlybecause police and military bases had been flooded.

"Our naval base in Trincomalee is under water, and right now we are trying tomanage the situation there while rescuing people," Jayantha Perera, aspokesman for the Sri Lankan navy, told Reuters.

Officials said that the waves had dislodged land mines and unexploded ordnanceleft over from the country's two-decade civil war, posing hazards not onlyfor rescue teams but villagers who remained in the area.

In India, a tsunami inundated a broad swath of the country's southeastern coastand flooded offshore islands. Hundreds of bodies washed up on the long, popularoceanfront near Madras, the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, and officialssaid they expected more to come ashore in coming days. Officials reported thatabout 1,700 people had died in Tamil Nadu.

The Indian interior minister, Shivraj Patil, told local television that atleast 200 others had died in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. But localresidents said that at least 400 fishermen were missing, and 200 Hindu worshiperswho had gone to the beach in the early morning hours to take a sacred dip wereunaccounted for. About 100 fatalities were also reported in both Pondicherryand Kerala.

The official Press Trust of India news agency, quoting alocal police commander, said another 1,000 people had perished on India'sAndaman and Nicobar islands,located off the western tip of Sumatra. "The situation is very grim," saidInspector General S.B. Deol of the Indian police.

In Thailand, tsunamis also crashed into the country's west coast. Authoritiessaid at least 392 bodies had been retrieved and that they expected the tollto approach 1,000. The dead included foreign tourists who had packed into thecountry's beach resorts for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country before," PrimeMinister Thaksin Shinawatra said.

On the Thai island of Phuket, one of Southeast Asia's most popular destinationsfor backpackers and surfers, a 30-foot wave surged over the sand and into thecrowded tourist strip, destroying hotels lining the seafront, tossing vehiclesaround like driftwood and sowing panic during one of the busiest times of theyear.

"People were coming up the roads, running and screaming that the beach was disappearing," saidBorge Carlsson, a Swede who owns a guesthouse about 200 yards back from thebeach. "Cars were upside down, floating around. It's amazing to see anythinglike this."

At the southern tip of Phuket, on Nai Harn Beach, the waves dismantled a crowdedstrip of restaurants, tailor shops and motorbike rental outlets. At nearbyhotels, amid shattered glass and broken concrete, a pickup truck was depositedin a swimming pool and a car came to rest in a lobby.

"There were thousands of people on the beach then," said Richard Motein,a Canadian who runs a dive shop on Phuket. "I looked up and saw a wallof water coming at me full of lawn chairs, boats, umbrellas. It just totallywasted the beach."

Moments later, many of the people who had been lying on the sand had vanished.

"We're looking at 500 to 1,000 dead, easy," hesaid, taking issue with the official fatality figures.

The Thai government ordered tourists to evacuate Phuketand other flooded beach resorts. Hundreds of Western and Asian visitors,as well as local residents,were evacuated by sea and air from other small islands off the coast, including200 people plucked from the tiny island of Ko Phi Phi, featured in the Hollywoodfilm "The Beach."

Helicopters surveyed the islands of the Andaman Sea for stranded divers andsnorkelers while rescue workers pulled more than 100 people from the water,officials said.

Besides the deaths on Phuket, officials reported fatalities in Phang Nga, Ranong,Krabi, Satun and Trang.

In Malaysia, authorities also ordered the evacuation of communities along thecountry's northwest coast after 42 people were killed on the seafront in thestates of Penang and Kedah. Several of the dead were jet skiers and picnickersswept out to sea, while many of the missing were fishermen who had set outin the morning and had yet to return by nightfall.

"Our country has never experienced such a disaster before," Malaysia'sdeputy prime minister, Najib Razak, told reporters. But he acknowledged, "Amongthe tsunami-hit nations, we are the least affected." He added that about200 houses had been swept away by the flood.

In Indonesia, authorities said they had dispatched senior officials to Acehto oversee rescue operations. That effort will be hampered by an ongoing warbetween government forces and separatist rebels.

The province has been largely off-limits to foreign aid organizations and journalistssince the government launched a new military offensive last year. Sutedjo Yuwono,secretary to Indonesia's welfare minister, said international aid groups andjournalists would now be allowed to enter Aceh but that access would be tightlyregulated.

The small Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives, which consists of 1,200 coralislands resting barely a yard above sea level, declared a state of emergencyand closed the international airport after two-thirds of the capital, Male,was inundated. In addition to the 32 dead, 51 people were missing, authoritiessaid.

A Maldivian government spokesman told Reuters by cell phone that none of thedead were believed to be tourists, who are drawn to the Maldives by its idyllicpalm-fringed islands and famed scuba diving.

Severe flooding also struck the Seychelles, a string of islands off the eastcoast of Africa. A six-foot ocean surge disrupted power to hundreds of homesand abnormally high tides repeatedly littered the airport runway with fish,forcing firefighters to hose down the airfield between flights.

Goodman reported from Bangkok. Staff writer Michael Dobbs in Waligama, SriLanka, correspondent John Lancaster in Cochin, India, and special correspondentsRama Lakshmi in Madras, India, and Noor Huda Ismail in Jakarta contributedto this report.

It Seemed Like a Scene From the Bible

Dec. 26, 2004

By Michael Dobbs
The Washington Post

DATELINE: WELIGAMA, Sri Lanka -- Disaster struck with no warning out of afaultlessly clear blue sky.

I was taking my morning swim around the island that my brother Geoffrey, abusinessman, had bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise200 yards from one of the world's most beautiful beaches.

I was a quarter way aroundthe island when I heard my brother shouting at me, "Comeback! Come back! There's something strange happening with the sea." Hewas swimming behind me, but closer to the shore.

I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. All seemed peaceful. There wasbarely a ripple in the sea. My brother's house rests on a rock 60 feet abovethe level of the sea.

Then I noticed that the water around me was rising, climbing up the rock wallsof the island with astonishing speed. The vast circle of golden sand aroundWeligama Bay was disappearing rapidly, and the water had reached the levelof the coastal road, fringed with palm trees.

As I swam to shore, my mind was momentarily befuddled by two conflicting impressions-- the idyllic blue sky and the rapidly rising waters.

In less than a minute, the water level had risen at least 15 feet, but thesea remained calm, with barely a wave in sight.

Within minutes, the beach and the area behind it had become an inland sea thatrushed over the road and poured into the flimsy houses on the other side. Thespeed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible, a naturalphenomenon unlike anything I had experienced.

As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight ofNoah's Ark.

Instead of the ark, I grabbed a wooden catamaran that the local people usedas a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat next to me. We bobbed up anddown on the catamaran as the water rushed past us into the village beyond theroad.

After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swimto the shore. What I did not realize was that the floodwaters would recedeas quickly and dramatically as they had risen.

All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed.Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current.The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings, and were bobbingup and down furiously.

For the first time, I felt afraid, powerless to prevent myself from being washedout to sea.

I swam in the direction of a loose catamaran, grabbed the hull and pulled myselfto safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down, and soon I was strandedon the sand.

As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screamswere coming from the houses beyond the road, many of which were still halffull of water that had trapped the inhabitants inside. Villagers were walking,stunned, along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place.

I was worried about my wife, who was on the beach when I went for my swim.I eventually found her walking along the road, dazed but happy to be alive.She had been trying to wade back to our island when the water carried her acrossthe road and into someone's back yard. At one point she was underwater, strugglingfor breath. She finally grabbed onto a rope and climbed into a tree, escapingthe waters that raged beneath her.

Our children were still asleep when the tsunami struck at 9:15. They woke upto find the bay practically drained of water and their parents walking backacross the narrow channel to safety.

The waves raged around the island for the rest of the day, alternately risingand receding.

It took us many hours to realize the scale of the disaster, because we couldsee only the tiny part in front of us. The road from Weligama to Galle wascut in many places. The coastal road was littered with carcasses of boats,dogs and even a few dead sharks. Helicopters flew overhead and loudspeakervans warned residents to leave low-lying areas for fear of more tsunamis.

My brothers' little island, called Tapbrobane after the ancient name of SriLanka, was largely intact, although a piece of our gate ended up on the seashorehalf a mile away. The water rose about 20 feet toward the house.

We have no water and no electricity and are cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka.It is impossible to buy food. We are existing on cold ham and turkey sandwiches,leftovers from Christmas dinner.

The holiday that we planned and dreamed about for many months is in ruins.We feel fortunate -- fortunate to be alive.

In India, Death Roars In From The Ocean

Dec. 26, 2004

By Rama Lakshmi and John Lancaster
TheWashington Post

MADRAS, India -- On a balmy Sunday morning at Marina Beach, BrajitaPoulose, 45, her husband, two sons and four other relatives strolled alongthe shore in the sunshine,enjoying the ocean breeze. Young men were playing cricket, joggers trottedpast food vendors, fishermen hauled in their nets. Then, without warning,the placid ocean turned violent.

"I was holding my cousin's hand, my two sons were walking behind me, and suddenly. . . we saw a huge wave coming at us," said Poulose, who lay exhaustedin a hospital bed, as her eldest son, Jiyo, sat weeping at her side. "Wedid not have enough warning."

The water quickly rose to Poulose's shoulders, she recalled, and a torrentcaused by a tsunami in the Indian Ocean swept her inland, across the main roadalong Marina Beach, a broad ribbon of golden sand at the edge of this bustlingcommercial city in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Jiyo, 29, tried to keephis mother in sight, but the surging current pushed them apart. "In no time I was alone, and I couldn't see anyone," hesaid. "It was one continuous wave."

He caught up with her hours later at a government hospital. The bodies of hisfather and younger brother Sebastian were in a nearby morgue. The rest of thefamily was missing.

Indian authorities said Sunday night that more than 3,000 people had died inthe tsunami, generated by a massive underwater earthquake early Sunday offthe coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The tsunami swept across the Indian Ocean along a 1,100-mile stretch of India'ssoutheastern and southern coast, with a heavy toll in Tamil Nadu, on the Bayof Bengal. Among the dead were fishermen and other residents of coastal villages,as well as city-dwellers and visitors out for morning walks on the oceanfrontof Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu. Hundreds of fishermen and others weremissing Sunday night.

Authorities in Tamil Nadu put the death toll in the state at 1,705. India'sprivate NDTV television channel reported that 1,000 people had died in theremote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian territory between Sumatra andBurma.

In the state of Andhra Pradesh, more than 200 were killed, according to IndianInterior Minister Shivraj Patil, and local officials said 280 had died in Pondicherry,a former French colonial outpost on the southeastern coast. In the state ofKerala, a popular winter destination for foreign tourists on India's southerntip, more than 120 people were reported to have died. Seawater flooded villagesmore than a mile inland in the state, the Press Trust of India news agencyreported.

Waves also caused devastation in Sri Lanka, surging across roads and railroadtracks and pouring through coastal villages, markets and beach resorts. Authoritiessaid late Sunday that at least 6,090 people had died. Elsewhere, the dead includedmore than 4,000 people in Indonesia and more than 300 in Thailand, where morethan 5,000 people were reported injured.

Indian television channels carried video footage of helicopters hoisting peopleto safety in Madras. They also showed turbid waters swirling around strandedbuses, beaches strewn with wreckage and women wailing over the bodies of childrenlaid out in makeshift morgues.

Dev Anand, 22, said hehad been playing cricket with four friends at Marina Beach when the wavesswept theminland. Three of his friends survived. Butone, whom Anand called "Sheik," could not be found. "He wastoo thin," Anand recalled after making the rounds of hospitals and morgueswith the three other friends to look for the missing man. "We kept yellingout to him to hold on to the lamppost, but he could not."

Ravichandran, a fishermanfrom Elliot's Beach in Madras, said he noticed something was amiss as hepulledhis morning catch from his net. "I saw the wavesclimbing alarmingly," Ravichandran, 32, told the Reuters news agency. "Irushed back and pulled my wife and two children out of our home. Water hadrushed into our hut by then."

Rajani Unni, also fromElliot's Beach, said the tremors felt like being on a train. "I turned around, and I saw that a small glass table with a flowervase was shaking," she said. "We saw people rushing away from fishermen'scolonies lining the beach. Women were wailing and crying."

Ekambal Nayakar, 50, wholives with her 75-year-old mother in Pattinappakan, a shantytown on the seafrontin Madras, said she waded and swam to safety whileothers rescued her mother. "The water entered the house this deep," Nayakar,50, said, pointing to her neck. "Then I heard voices outside -- 'Sea water!Sea water!' -- and people were running helter-skelter toward the tallest buildingthey could see."

Pazhani, a fisherman,told Reuters he was taking a bath when sea water entered his bathroom. "I got so scared that I ran out," hesaid.

His wife, Lakshmi, saidshe was having breakfast with her three children at the time. "We had to leave everything and run to safety," she said. "Wedon't know what has happened to our TV, radio, utensils."

Muthalakshmi, a fisherman'swife, told the news agency that her mother had gone to the oceanfront tobuy fishand was swept away by the waves. "Ittook us an hour to recover her body," she said. "Thank God my husbandhad not gone to sea, as he was unwell."

Some small boats wereswept far inland by the ocean surge, while others were washed out to sea.P. Pamanamurthy,a resident of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh,said he saw fishermen holding on to overturned boats as the receding waterspulled them seaward. "I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flyingon the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if madeof paper," he told the Associated Press.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ordered senior cabinet ministersto stricken coastal areas to survey damage and directed army and naval unitsto help with search and rescue operations. Reports from isolated coastal villagesindicated that the death toll was likely to rise, Indian officials said. Theyexpressed particular concern about the fate of thousands of people in the Andamanand Nicobar archipelago.

"About 10 to 20 villages have been reportedly washed away, and it has becomedifficult to get information from there," Home Secretary Dhirendra Singhtold reporters in New Delhi. "We're keeping our fingers crossed."

In Sri Lanka, President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a national emergency,and the military scrambled to mount search-and-rescue operations, althoughtroops were hampered by wave damage to naval installations, officials said.

The port in Colombo, the capital, was closed. Resort areas and villages southof Colombo were heavily damaged, as were isolated communities on the island'sless developed eastern side, authorities said.

Sri Lanka, a teardrop-shaped island off the southern tip of India, is knownfor its lush tropical forests, tea plantations and idyllic, crescent-shapedbeaches. It has experienced a tourist boom since government forces and rebelsfrom the country's ethnic Tamil minority declared a cease-fire in 2002.

Coastal areas in the northeasterndistricts of Mutur and Trincomalee were smashed by waves as high as 18 feet,D. Rodrigo, a Mutur district official, told theAP. "The police station in Mutur is under water," Rodrigo said.

The Associated Press quotedone of its photographers, Gemunu Amarasinghe, as saying after a tour of theareasouth of Colombo: "I counted 24 bodiesin a stretch of only six kilometers. . . . I saw bodies of children entangledin wire mesh. . . . There were rows and rows of women and men standing on theroad and asking if anyone has seen their family members. . . . I also saw peoplebringing in bodies from the sea beaches and placing them on roads and coveringthem with sarongs."

Amarasinghe said he had been told that some people were killed when they ranout to retrieve stranded fish after the first waves hit, then were caught bya second onslaught.

Roland Buerk, a BBC correspondentvacationing in Sri Lanka, was in bed in his hotel room in Unawatuna, a resorttown on the southwestern coast, when thewaves struck. "We suddenly heard some shouts from outside," he wroteon the BBC News Web site. "Then the water started coming under the door.Within a few seconds it was touching the window."

He and a companion pushedthrough the rushing water to a tree and climbed into its branches, but itcollapsedunder the force of the current. "We wereswept along for a few hundred meters, trying to dodge the motorcycles, refrigerators,cars and other debris that were coming with us. Finally, about 300 meters inshore,we managed to get hold of a pillar, which we held on to, and the waters justgradually began to subside."

Buerk described shatteredbuildings and cars in trees. He said he had counted four bodies, includingtwo SriLankans -- an elderly woman and a young woman-- and a Western boy "who looked to be about five years old."

Another witness in Unawatuna,Swati Thiyagarajan, described the wave to an NDTV reporter: "It wasliterally like the sea stood up and walked to your door."

Lancaster reported from Cochin, India.Stories copyright 2004 The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.