December 27, 2004
Surviving the Tidal Wave - A First-Hand Report
Originally posted by Alex Steffen from WorldChanging: Another World Is Here, reBlogged by ts
We don’t, as a general policy, cover news per se on this site, but the Indonesian earthquakes and their aftermaths are clearly something more than your average news story. We’ll be posting more about solutions later today, but for now, this story of survival caught out eye:
“As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah’s Ark. Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold of a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat, next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran, as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road.
few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I didn t realise was that the floodwaters would recede as 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 furiously bobbing up and down. For the first time, I felt afraid, powerless to prevent myself from being swept out to sea.
“I swam in the direction of one of the loose catamarans, grabbed hold of the hull, and pulled myself to safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down and soon I was stranded on the sand.
“As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screams and yells were coming from the houses behind the road, many of which were still half full of water, trapping the inhabitants inside. Villagers were walking dazed along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place.”
(Posted by Alex Steffen in QuickChanges at 08:35 AM)
Via WorldChanging: Another World Is Here
