Two Durban women were celebrating life yesterday after a frightening four hours on a little island in the south of Thailand.
Alison Lawrence and Renate Dannewitz were on their way to a bar on Railay beach, part of the Krabi Islands, when the tsunami warning siren shattered the idyllic suroundings. Then all hell broke loose.
Earlier they had SMSed friends back in SA about their “lobster suntans”, how they were going rock climbing the next day and plans for Lawrence’s birthday party when they returned home.
Then, at 11.28am SA time, the shock message came through.
“We having tsunami aftershock,” wrote Lawrence. “We have to run to high point. We so scared… I’m not joking we are petrified.”
Seconds later a second SMS read: “Tsunami warning siren gone off and we ran. Please pray for us.”
A tsunami warning had been issued for the entire Indian Ocean region after a powerful 8.6 magnitude earthquake and strong aftershocks struck off Indonesia, sending people scurrying from buildings as far away as southern India.
Once Lawrence and Dannewitz reached higher ground and, with other tourists and locals, found shelter from the thunder and lightning in a house in the forest, Lawrence explained their terror.
“We had just finished SMSing you and were walking to our local bar to have a cocktail at about 4.30pm and a siren went. I have never seen such fear. Locals then foreigners started screaming trying to shut roller doors. And then everyone just running.
“We then realised tsunami. The locals were crying. That petrified me. People’s slops were breaking as we ran to the highest point. I hit a wobbly and burst into tears.”
A while later they said: “There’s a whole lot of us together. We can hear the monkeys on the tops of the cliffs. It’s bizarre… they must have run as we did.”
Then, at 1.30pm, came the message friends had been waiting for: “We have moved to a bar, Ya Ya, which is near the higher ground – we having a drink with the rest. But we still can’t go down yet – we have to wait for the okay signal.”
And then at 3.30pm: “All cool. Warning lifted. We have just come back down to the beach. Bit quiet and subdued, but things picking up. Bars slowly opening for service. We got down at 8.15pm Thai time. Not sure how we going to sleep tonight.”
The two, who are due home on Monday, are adamant they would continue to enjoy their holiday.
Another group that included 27 SA nationals was also evacuated to high ground in Patong, a Thai resort town.
SA’s tsunami warning was lifted late yesterday, Cape Town’s disaster risk management centre said.
“This tsunami and earthquake alert does not warrant the authorities to take action,” said spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes.
According to the Council for Geoscience yesterday, SA was under tsunami watch but there was no need to panic, the SA Weather Service said. 8P6
