Phuket reduced to rubble
In a matter of hours, a holiday paradise lay in ruins. The Star journalist SIRA HABIBU recounts her harrowing time reporting from around Phuket, Thailand, after the tsunami struck.
FRUSTRATION overwhelmed me when I arrived at the Phuket International Airport a day after the tsunami unleashed its fury across South Asia.
A Malaysia Airlines 128-seater Boeing 737 was only ferrying about 32 passengers from KL International Airport to Phuket but clearance at checkpoints was extremely slow.
It was 7.30pm when The Star photographer Goh Gaik Lee and I arrived at our destination. We did not have much time left as I was determined to track down Malaysian victims and file my first story that very night.
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These dogs seem to be bidding each other a sad farewell as they part ways, with one of them leaving Kamala Beach in Phuket with its master after his house was destroyed by the tsunami. – Photo by Goh Gaik Lee |
The hotel booking counters at the airport were open although they had no rooms to offer.
When I went to the information counter at the departure hall to get the telephone numbers of all the hotels, motels, and guesthouses in town, the reality of the situation sank in as the place was packed with terrified-looking and disoriented foreigners waiting to get the first flight out. The tsunami experience would have given them nightmares that would probably haunt them for the rest of their lives.
The woman at the counter was all smiles as she attended to one complaint after another. It is part of the Thai culture to smile even in the face of adversity.
If everybody cracks under pressure, the scene would have been more chaotic. I believe calm and collected personalities should make their presence felt during times of distress, as they could be the much-needed pillars of strength that would help calm the situation.
It took us about four hours to find a room to stay for the night. We were staying about 20km away from the scene of destruction.
After checking in, we immediately made our way to the Vachira Phuket Hospital to look for Malaysian victims.
There was a hive of activity at the hospital even late at night. Thai volunteers proficient in various languages including English, Dutch, French and German were there to attend to queries. Free food and drinks were served at the tent. Donated clothes were piled up in one corner. Free telephone lines were also available for victims to call home.
It was obvious that Thailand did not need international humanitarian organisations to render assistance to the victims as it had enough volunteers from local non-government organisations and community centres.
There was a very long list of names of victims who were warded at the hospital. The names were compiled under countries of origin, making a search easier.
I felt bad for wasting the volunteers’ time when I gave a fictitious Malaysian name so that I could have access to the Malaysian list. But a journalist has to do what a journalist has to do.
There were five Malaysian names on the list. But the volunteer told me they had all been transferred to Bangkok. I thought their injuries must have been so serious that they had to be transported to Bangkok. I only found out the next day that Bangkok means the Bangkok Phuket Hospital in Phuket.
When I asked for names of dead victims, they directed me to a board where photographs of unidentified dead bodies were pasted.
My heart was filled with sorrow as I saw the pictures of the battered and bloated bodies. The victims must have gone through hell during the last moments of their lives.
When I went back to the hotel that night, I psyched myself to be emotionally strong.
The next day we went to the Patong Hospital where most of the dead bodies were kept. A tent was set up for policemen to take down reports from victims and their families. There were no multi-lingual volunteers at the hospital except for a Singaporean who wanted to be known only as Lee.
Lee immediately took me to the ground-floor hospital car park to show me the coffins containing the bodies of two Malaysian victims – four-year-old Ho Mei Xin and her mother Yeo Tiew Kheng, aged 47.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I saw the side and front view photographs of the little girl who was battered by the waves. Her eyes were closed, her face badly bruised.
I quickly left the car park and sat under the tent waiting for the dead girl’s father, Ho For Nam, who would be arriving at the hospital after getting clearance papers from the Thai and Malaysian authorities to fly the bodies home to Malacca that night.
We heard that the tide had washed more bodies up onto Patong Beach. But we could not leave the hospital as we had to interview the relatives of the dead.
At the hospital compound, volunteers and carpenters were busy making extra-large coffins to contain the bloated bodies.
Military personnel were roped in to help put the bodies in body bags and coffins. Everybody did whatever they could.
There was the stench of death in the air. As a mark of respect for the dead, I chose not to show any sign of discomfort.
After waiting for more than five hours at the hospital, I finally met up with Ho who arrived with his 15-year-old daughter and three other relatives.
It was a challenging moment for me to interview a grieving man – he had lost both his daughter and wife. He said he was full of regret for having taken his family to Phuket for a holiday.
Siblings of another dead Malaysian, Yap Chai Lim, came all the way from Kedah and had his body cremated in Phuket.
The sister of the deceased pleaded with me not to mention even the family’s surname in my reports on that day because they had yet to tell their father, who was recovering from a heart attack, that his youngest son was dead.
They did not want their father to learn of the news about his son’s death through the newspapers. Yap, 38, was a freelance photographer married to a Thai woman.
I respected their wishes, and chose to mention Yap’s name in my reports only two days later.
The next few days I interviewed some Malaysians who had miraculously escaped the tsunami. I went to Khao Lak beaches in Phang Nga province located some 100km to the north of Phuket to interview tsunami survivor Ngu Ming Hock.
All the establishments along the 25km stretch of beaches were in ruins.
The tsunami had claimed more than 5,300 lives in six provinces in Thailand. The worst hit was Phang Nga where more than 4,000 bodies were found, followed by Krabi, Phuket, Ranong, Trang and Satun.
I was shocked when I learnt from the survivors that official search-and-rescue operations in worst-hit Phang Nga only began two days after the tsunami hit the shores.
I could not help feeling more lives could have been saved if rescue operations had begun earlier. The Thai authorities said rescue efforts to the province were hampered because roads were damaged.
Feelings of disgust overwhelmed me when I saw photographs of volunteers and workers smiling beside dead bodies at a temple in Bang Muang in the Phang Nga province. It was as if they had become immune to the sight of dead bodies after handling more than 1,400 bodies. Most of the bodies were from Nam Ken fishing village which was totally destroyed by the killer waves.
Phi Phi Don Island was a death trap. I could imagine how difficult it must have been for the victims to escape the raging waves if they were trapped in the maze of thousands of tiny shops haphazardly built along narrow lanes.
I had been to Phi Phi Island before. It was easy to get lost in the maze of shops located barely 20m from the shores.
Thousands of zinc roofs were among the rubble. The zinc sheets could be potent blades. I cringed when a survivor told me that one victim was beheaded by a piece of zinc.
A 10-tonne generator that was washed out of its building reflected the might of the giant waves.
The tiny island paradise was reduced to rubble as the waves pounded it from the northern and southern bays.
Coconut trees are still standing tall amidst the ruins. Some survivors said their lives were spared because the trees saved them.
Based on eyewitness accounts, it is clear that Mother Nature had given warning signs prior to the disaster but nobody took heed.
Terrestrial animals and communities who are one with nature had apparently heeded the warning signals. There were no animal carcasses amidst the ruins. The Sea Gypsies in Phuket also managed to save themselves and their belongings after noticing the sea behaving strangely.
The tragedy has taught us to heed Mother Nature’s warning signs. It had also taught us not to construct buildings too close to the shore without barriers to mitigate erosion and strong waves.
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