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2004.12.26 TSUNAMI |
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Banda Aceh This is the most terrifying of all the videos. It shows the area of maximum impact, in northern Sumatra, at the area closest to the earthquake's epicenter. The tsunamis that washed over the entire northern end of the island (see aerial photos, before and after) were estimated to be at a height of 15 meters. More than 85,000 of the islands inhabitants are confirmed dead as of 5 January, 2005 |
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Banda Aceh Shot by a wedding photographer perched on a rooftop in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, the tape shows a torrent of dark brown water flowing fast and furious down the street below. The water, which came about 15 minutes after a massive undersea quake rocked the area, turned the street into a river which carried planks, mattresses, cars, appliances and uprooted trees, and sent people scampering up the sides of buildings. The only sounds were those of people screaming as the surging torrent picked up everything in its way and flowed as high as the second floor of the buildings. |
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Khao Lak Amateur camcorder footage of the 2004 tsunami disaster. Obtained by APTN shows the devastating effects of the tsunami on the Thai holiday resort of Khao Lak. The pictures show a man on the beach being engulfed by water as the overpowering waves rush towards the shore. Anukul Charoenkul - who owns the Viewpoint Restaurant - shot the video. He said his restaurant was full of tourists when the tsunami struck at around 1030 local time (0330 GMT) on 26 December. He explained he had received an early warning of the impending disaster from his brother, who was at a different location along the coast which had already been struck. Charoenkul therefore had time to prepare his camera and catch the moment the tsunami hit Khao Lak from the third floor of the building where his restaurant is located. He said that he shouted at the people on the beach to warn them, telling them to run, but they could not hear. Immediately after the waves had struck, dead bodies could be seen washed up on the shore. The beach was covered in huge piles of debris. |
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Phuket, Thailand Amateur camcorder footage of the 2004 tsunami disaster shot from the balcony of a motel. The cameraman (father) is with his wife and son looking towards the beach and are at first amazed to see a very large wave come crashing in the beach. A short while later a much larger wave suddenly apears and can be seen breaking right in front of the beach and has such force that part of it proceeds right into the resort instantly filling it with water and doing a lot of damage |
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Kanyakumari, India Amateur camcorder footage of the 2004 tsunami disaster. The footage captures the sudden crashing of a giant wave against the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, situated at the southern tip of Kanyakumari. The video was shot by Aniket Kale. After visiting the memorial, the 16 year-old and his family were waiting for a ferry to take them back to the mainland when the tsunami suddenly crashed into the memorial and the sea wall beside it. Hundreds of other tourists were around at the time. Kale and his family are from Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, The devastating tsunami of December 26 which destroyed lives and property in several countries around the Indian Ocean, killed more than six thousand people in Tamil Nadu. |
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Khao Lak, Thailand Amateur camcorder footage of the 2004 tsunami disaster shot by a German tourist. It starts like a normal day at the beach only the tide is extremely low and completely unaware of the incoming Tsunami people are wondering about exploring this fenomenon and some even are scooba diving. Then the cameraman starts noticing some huge waves in the horizon which start to break and he describes them as "extraordinary" several times. As the waves get closer he also notices that the ships are trying to escape them at full speed and when the first wave finally reaches one ship and swallows it whole does he and the tourists on the beach start to realize the magnitude of what is comming directly at them. Screams can be heard from the tourists in the background and he starts showing increasing concern repeating the phrase "what is that" untill he finally panics and tries to flee for his life. |
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Koh Lanta The sea grows from a small ripple to a distrubingly large (though minimal, as compared to others of the same day...perhaps 4 or 5 meters in height) onslaught that sweeps toward the cameraperson. What strikes me about this, as well as some of the others, is the emotional transition of the viewers: from riveted curiousity (with maybe an occasional slightly-nervous laugh); to awe; to abject, primal fear ("It's big! Oh my God...it's HUGE!") |
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Patong Beach, Thailand Opening shots show bucolic, tropical paradise. Only when viewing the subsequent scene is part of the impact felt: all of the strollers, bathers and surfers are gone. Part of the destructive power of a tsunami comes from the enormous volume of water: it's not simply a tall wave that breaks then withdraws; rather the tall wave is followed by an enormous volume or plane of water behind it. This series of two waves breaks over the seawall and keeps coming...and coming...and coming. The wave becomes like a flash flood. |
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Patong Beach, Thailand This seems to be shot from the same beach, but at a much closer vantage point, and therefore from lends a much stronger impresion of the force behind the water. Did just the camera survive? (the video cuts off abruptly) |
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Penang Beach, Malaysia The gathering surge. Choppy waves. (Exciting!) Bigger waves. (Oh, my!) Waves coming closer. (Uh...wow!) Waves sweeping into seawall (Exclamations). Followed by a big surge slamming people into the seawall (frantic yelling) |
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Maldives Surrealism at its finest. |
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Phuket More or less a flash flood event. "It's coming again! It's coming again from a different direction!" The camera operator moves through the building in time to see the deluge sweeping an elderly couple away. Again I'm struck by the fragility and innocence of the people involved. Do they think they're watching television or something? The scale of spectacles in action/adventure movies (1000 foot tall waves) seems to dwarf anything here (50 foot waves)...maybe this is why the observers seem unaware of the gathering danger. The waters surge higher. Sounds of broken tables and chairs being swept through the interior space he just moved through. A man in bathing trunks steps up a few feet. Apparently these guys made it out alive; how many other spontaneous newspeople didn't? I'm struck by a few stories that have surfaced lately: aboriginal tribes seem to have escaped unscathed, their hyper-attenuated senses clueing in to subtleties we've loss the ability to perceive/process [primitive tribes]; and elephants charging toward higher ground before waves struck |
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Sri Lanka Resort (Whuuuu-HUUUMPPPPHHH). "Oh my God. Look, it's just coming in now, right over the swimming pool. Shit. GET INSIDE! Come on, guys! We've got to get out of here. We'll be all right for this one. (wave has swept through courtyard, over pool, is swamping the base of their building) (Sound of windows being blown in, crashing noises in the floors below the observers) Shit..how high is this gonna go, oh fuck...Okay, I'm getting frightened, man." (running) |
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Kenya The voices on the previous videos have all been either Euro or Asian. Here the fisherman on the Kenyan coastland - thousands of miles from the epicenter - witness the sloshing riptide chaos of the sea after the wave's energy has sped through the ocean with the velocity of a jetliner. Without the mental constructs ("our seisometers have detected an abnormally large quake likely to cause mil to catastrophic surges in your area...please clear the waterfront. we will give you periodic updates...etc") we have to place events like this in perspective, you begin to get a sense of how something like the Black Death must have been an absolute mindfuck to the people of the 14th century: suddenly everyone in your village spouts festering boils and drops dead in several days. Is God mad at us? In another place an event is committed to legend, by a people without a written history, of "the day the sea rose up and ate most of our people." This is not, of course, to imply that everyone living in the disaster zone is a "primitive" but rather to impart a sense of the rupture of normal reality that occurs in events like this one. |
PHOTOGRAPHY |
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Woman pictured confronting wave survived |
NEWS |
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| 2005 jan 06 | |
For Many Tsunami Survivors, Battered Bodies, Grim Choices | |
JANE PERLEZ | |
NY Times |
| 2005 jan 06 | |
Primitive tribes fled beaches long before tsunami struck | |
NEELESH MISRA | |
Associated Press |
| 2005 jan 05 | |
So is the U.S. "stingy" about helping poor countries? | |
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF | |
NY Times |
| 2005 jan 12 | |
The Great Tidal Wave in Thailand. personal account | |
Miguel and Brigitte | |
sent by a friend |
| 2005 jan 03 | |
Woman pictured confronting wave survived | |
Jamie Wilson | |
The Guardian |