Face to face with a tsunami
By William Recktenwall, a retired Chicago Tribune reporter who teaches journalism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
January 2, 2005
At 9 a.m. I settled in for breakfast at the Hotel Club Lanka on the beach at Ahangama, located on the popular south coast of Sri Lanka, where every room was booked with foreign tourists and Sri Lankan guests.
The grounds are like a picture postcard, the perfect place to end my two weeks on this lovely island nation. The temperature was about 80; the skies, crystal clear and blue.
A big wave splashed, and people on the beach jumped back and yelled. In the next minute four or five larger waves rolled across the manicured lawn and pushed dirty water into the pool.
Strange. But I was on high ground, and a concrete wall allowed me to stand 2 feet higher.
I felt safe.
Then a wave swept in, a large one.
I was in water to my knees. It rushed out, almost pulling me from my perch. I grabbed a concrete pillar. The next wave was up to my neck. I barely could hold on.
Then one came over my head, and the force pulled me into the water.
I could see cars in the parking lot being tossed like toys, walls were falling, 6-foot-high concrete walls crumbled.
I was being washed back and forth. People on the hotel balcony screamed at me to swim to them, but I could make no headway. As the water receded, I grabbed a piece of netting attached to a concrete pillar and got upright again, clinging to a pillar next to an English chap named Alex, a former merchant marine engineer.
"When will this end?" I asked.
"Hold on," Alex said.
In minutes the waters receded for the distance of several football fields. The ocean reef was exposed.
The hotel was devastated.
Immediately, people began a head count. Two German teens and their mother were missing, but they were found safe in 10 minutes.
An English girl, a cute 3 1/2-year-old blond doll named Esther, here with three generations of her family for a holiday, was missing.
"Esther!" the search was on. Hotel staff, a dozen members of her family, searched meticulously. But there was no luck. Alex and I were carefully looking under cars and beneath the wreckage of the fallen walls, but we could not find her.
A guest, an older Sri Lankan who had been dragged from his room by the wave, was found. The staff and guests began CPR, but it was too late.
A member of the hotel staff was pulled from the kitchen. He too was dead.
My room was on an upper floor. I gathered a few things in a bag I could carry and got ready. There was panic that another wave was coming. Several Buddhist guests chanted prayers. Some large waves swept onto the grounds of the hotel, but nothing like the first.
The hotel staff came to my room.
"Please, leave, leave, hurry, hurry!" they shouted.
They helped some of the others with their baggage. One member of the hotel staff was bleeding badly from his right foot. We wrapped it in a sheet.
I had a bottle of water in hand. One of the boys who worked at the front desk and had been begging me to leave, asked whether he could have a drink. I handed him the water. He removed the top and poured some into his mouth without touching his lips.
I offered water to the boy with the injured foot, and he did the same.
The two helped me through the wreckage to a small school on higher ground.
We waited a few minutes, still not understanding the dimensions of what had happened.
The village was in ruins. There was near panic as people headed up a road to higher ground. About a quarter-mile away, the hotel guests gathered on the lawn of a private home. We were offered tea and crackers.
There was still no sign of little Esther.
Rendezvous with death
A New Zealander, Patrick, a teacher, had headed to watch a cricket match on television just an hour earlier. I chatted with his wife. She was confident she would find him.
But he never returned. He had gone to Unawatuna, about 3 miles closer to Galle.
That area was whipped away.
In Galle, a city of 80,000 people, an estimated 10,000 died as the water was funneled through a busy bus and train station. The high walls of the old Dutch fort built in 1637 held. A train packed with commuters was overturned.
We sat on the lawn of the home and talked with other guests, a Swiss photographer, a German journalist, a Dutch couple saved only because the water knocked out the wall of their room, giving them an escape route. The water had nearly risen to the ceiling.
Esther was still missing as 35 of us were loaded on the back of an open truck for an hour drive to a tea plantation owned by one of the hotel owners.
Trucks were zooming past now, and every now and then there was a burst of shouting and running.
"It is coming again, the sea!"
But it did not.
A truck passed. There were several bodies in the back of it.
The full fury of the event was beginning to set in.
The hourlong ride up the winding road was not comfortable, but it was joyful.
As we passed the local hospital, surrounded by hundreds of people, a scream came from the truck.
"Esther! It's Esther!"
Through the crowd you could see the unmistakable blond head of Esther, being carried by the man who ran the herbal medicine shop at the hotel, and the waiter who had been serving my breakfast.
The two had seen the child caught in the first wave of water, grabbed her and ran.
And ran and ran--up the hill away from the water. They had gone to the safety of the hospital. There were cheers and tears; even as I write this, it is hard not to cry.
We spent the night on a tea plantation. I slept with several others on the porch of the manager's bungalow. A Sri Lankan boy stood guard near us all night.
It was not comfortable, but we were alive.
The morning after
In the morning, a cook arrived to prepare breakfast. A bus came. We piled in and began the 80-mile ride down back roads to Colombo, the capital, which had been untouched by the wave. The trip on the narrow road took seven hours. There was a steady stream of trucks, cars buses and motor bikes, piled high with relief supplies headed to the south coast.
At the Colombo Holiday Inn, I already had my reservation. A clean room and shower was great; a visit to the American Embassy to replace my passport lost in the hotel safe took just an hour.
I went to the Northwest Airlines ticket office and asked to get new tickets for my return. They would deliver them to the hotel.
When the office boy arrived with the tickets, I offered a tip, but he refused.
I insisted: "If you can't use it, give to the Red Cross."
He took the 50 rupee note and left. I saw him drop it in the contribution box as he headed out the door.
I learned a lot in a few days, much about the human spirit, the will to survive and about people, particularly the people of Sri Lanka.
They are said to be poor, and they are not wealthy, but their spirit, their willingness to help, to share anything they had was amazing.
This is my third trip to this tiny place. It will not be my last. I have made some Sri Lanka friends. I have written letters to two of them who lived near the hotel.
I am praying they were not harmed.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
January 2, 2005
At 9 a.m. I settled in for breakfast at the Hotel Club Lanka on the beach at Ahangama, located on the popular south coast of Sri Lanka, where every room was booked with foreign tourists and Sri Lankan guests.
The grounds are like a picture postcard, the perfect place to end my two weeks on this lovely island nation. The temperature was about 80; the skies, crystal clear and blue.
A big wave splashed, and people on the beach jumped back and yelled. In the next minute four or five larger waves rolled across the manicured lawn and pushed dirty water into the pool.
Strange. But I was on high ground, and a concrete wall allowed me to stand 2 feet higher.
I felt safe.
Then a wave swept in, a large one.
I was in water to my knees. It rushed out, almost pulling me from my perch. I grabbed a concrete pillar. The next wave was up to my neck. I barely could hold on.
Then one came over my head, and the force pulled me into the water.
I could see cars in the parking lot being tossed like toys, walls were falling, 6-foot-high concrete walls crumbled.
I was being washed back and forth. People on the hotel balcony screamed at me to swim to them, but I could make no headway. As the water receded, I grabbed a piece of netting attached to a concrete pillar and got upright again, clinging to a pillar next to an English chap named Alex, a former merchant marine engineer.
"When will this end?" I asked.
"Hold on," Alex said.
In minutes the waters receded for the distance of several football fields. The ocean reef was exposed.
The hotel was devastated.
Immediately, people began a head count. Two German teens and their mother were missing, but they were found safe in 10 minutes.
An English girl, a cute 3 1/2-year-old blond doll named Esther, here with three generations of her family for a holiday, was missing.
"Esther!" the search was on. Hotel staff, a dozen members of her family, searched meticulously. But there was no luck. Alex and I were carefully looking under cars and beneath the wreckage of the fallen walls, but we could not find her.
A guest, an older Sri Lankan who had been dragged from his room by the wave, was found. The staff and guests began CPR, but it was too late.
A member of the hotel staff was pulled from the kitchen. He too was dead.
My room was on an upper floor. I gathered a few things in a bag I could carry and got ready. There was panic that another wave was coming. Several Buddhist guests chanted prayers. Some large waves swept onto the grounds of the hotel, but nothing like the first.
The hotel staff came to my room.
"Please, leave, leave, hurry, hurry!" they shouted.
They helped some of the others with their baggage. One member of the hotel staff was bleeding badly from his right foot. We wrapped it in a sheet.
I had a bottle of water in hand. One of the boys who worked at the front desk and had been begging me to leave, asked whether he could have a drink. I handed him the water. He removed the top and poured some into his mouth without touching his lips.
I offered water to the boy with the injured foot, and he did the same.
The two helped me through the wreckage to a small school on higher ground.
We waited a few minutes, still not understanding the dimensions of what had happened.
The village was in ruins. There was near panic as people headed up a road to higher ground. About a quarter-mile away, the hotel guests gathered on the lawn of a private home. We were offered tea and crackers.
There was still no sign of little Esther.
Rendezvous with death
A New Zealander, Patrick, a teacher, had headed to watch a cricket match on television just an hour earlier. I chatted with his wife. She was confident she would find him.
But he never returned. He had gone to Unawatuna, about 3 miles closer to Galle.
That area was whipped away.
In Galle, a city of 80,000 people, an estimated 10,000 died as the water was funneled through a busy bus and train station. The high walls of the old Dutch fort built in 1637 held. A train packed with commuters was overturned.
We sat on the lawn of the home and talked with other guests, a Swiss photographer, a German journalist, a Dutch couple saved only because the water knocked out the wall of their room, giving them an escape route. The water had nearly risen to the ceiling.
Esther was still missing as 35 of us were loaded on the back of an open truck for an hour drive to a tea plantation owned by one of the hotel owners.
Trucks were zooming past now, and every now and then there was a burst of shouting and running.
"It is coming again, the sea!"
But it did not.
A truck passed. There were several bodies in the back of it.
The full fury of the event was beginning to set in.
The hourlong ride up the winding road was not comfortable, but it was joyful.
As we passed the local hospital, surrounded by hundreds of people, a scream came from the truck.
"Esther! It's Esther!"
Through the crowd you could see the unmistakable blond head of Esther, being carried by the man who ran the herbal medicine shop at the hotel, and the waiter who had been serving my breakfast.
The two had seen the child caught in the first wave of water, grabbed her and ran.
And ran and ran--up the hill away from the water. They had gone to the safety of the hospital. There were cheers and tears; even as I write this, it is hard not to cry.
We spent the night on a tea plantation. I slept with several others on the porch of the manager's bungalow. A Sri Lankan boy stood guard near us all night.
It was not comfortable, but we were alive.
The morning after
In the morning, a cook arrived to prepare breakfast. A bus came. We piled in and began the 80-mile ride down back roads to Colombo, the capital, which had been untouched by the wave. The trip on the narrow road took seven hours. There was a steady stream of trucks, cars buses and motor bikes, piled high with relief supplies headed to the south coast.
At the Colombo Holiday Inn, I already had my reservation. A clean room and shower was great; a visit to the American Embassy to replace my passport lost in the hotel safe took just an hour.
I went to the Northwest Airlines ticket office and asked to get new tickets for my return. They would deliver them to the hotel.
When the office boy arrived with the tickets, I offered a tip, but he refused.
I insisted: "If you can't use it, give to the Red Cross."
He took the 50 rupee note and left. I saw him drop it in the contribution box as he headed out the door.
I learned a lot in a few days, much about the human spirit, the will to survive and about people, particularly the people of Sri Lanka.
They are said to be poor, and they are not wealthy, but their spirit, their willingness to help, to share anything they had was amazing.
This is my third trip to this tiny place. It will not be my last. I have made some Sri Lanka friends. I have written letters to two of them who lived near the hotel.
I am praying they were not harmed.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
These photos are related
NOTES TO STORY
After returning to the U.S. I heard from both of my friends, they and their families, were not harmed.
NOTES TO STORY
After returning to the U.S. I heard from both of my friends, they and their families, were not harmed.
Update Feb. 20, Although the information comes third hand I believe it is true, Patrick the New Zealand guest who I thought was lost was located alive a few days after the event. He is recovering from injuries.
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posted by William @ 6:13 AM
