Posted on 12/29/2004 7:48:51 AM PST by Rebelbase
The tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean barely noticed the Maldives, tearing through the collection of low-lying atolls – submerging some of them completely for several minutes – dragging tourists from their hotel rooms and swimmers out to sea.
At least 43 people were confirmed dead and 63 reported missing in the popular tourist destination today, the government said. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom declared a state of emergency.
Tourists described three-feet-high walls of water sweeping across their resort islands and into their bedrooms, with powerful currents dragging swimmers out to sea.
Mike Rigg, 33, a construction worker from the Wirral near Liverpool, was surfing at the resort of Lohifushi when the tsunami hit.
He said there was a six-feet-high surge in the waves and he was dragged along the edge of a powerful current, though he managed to stay out of the worst of it.
Finally he reached an area where he could stand and fought his way to shore.
He watched two scuba divers being rescued by a boat after being dragged by a current, and saw another motorboat unable at full power to make any headway against a violent surge of water rushing past the island.
Nicola Whiteford, 35, a structural engineer from London, said guests at Lohifushi huddled around the bar area, which was the only major part of the island that stayed consistently above water.
“The frightening thing was that before each wave, the lagoon emptied itself out and you could see the coral. So we knew another one was coming,” she said.
Ms Whiteford said that for hours after the disaster, survivors didn’t know what had caused the tsunami or what to expect, because radio communications were patchy and power cuts meant television wasn’t working.
Eloisa Cino, a 29-year-old costume designer from Rome, said she was relaxing in her beachfront bungalow on Sunday morning when the tsunami smashed down the wooden door, overturning furniture and scattering her belongings.
“We grabbed what we could and tried to run, but there was nowhere to run,” Cino said tonight as she waited to board a flight back to Italy.
The 50 by 300-yard Fun Island, south of the main Maldivian island of Male, was completely covered by water for several minutes before the sea subsided, Cino said.
Some walls of the brick bungalows were demolished, and five of the 100 people on the island were injured, one with a broken leg, she said.
Cari Webber, a 25-year-old student from Miami, had just checked into the Club Med Farukolhufushi and was walking to her room on the first day of a planned week-long holiday when the tsunami hit.
Electric power and plumbing were knocked out, and sewage mixed with seawater ran across the island. Webber fled to an upper storey of a resort building and huddled there wearing a life jacket for hours, fearing further surges.
Throughout Sunday night, resort staff patrolled the beaches looking out to sea. The guests were taken off the island by motorboat today.
Many tourists said casualties would have been much greater if the wave hadn’t struck in the daytime, when most people were awake and mobile.
Male’s airport reopened today after being closed most of Sunday. A half a dozen charter flights from Europe and India came to take tourists home. Hundreds of tourists packed the airport’s internet café and telephone booths informing families and friends they were safe.
Officials said Pakistan has dispatched a ship and helicopters to the Maldives to carry relief items to the islands.
Maldives, a chain of 1,192 coral atolls south-west of India with a permanent population of 278,000, thrives on tourism and attracted more than 600,000 visitors this year.
At the peak year-end holiday season, there are normally around 20,000 foreign tourists in the Maldives, travel agents estimated.
Local agent Mohammed Sunan predicted it would take months for the industry to recover.
He said at least four or five of the Maldives’s roughly 80 resorts had been inundated with water, causing extensive damage.
There's a joke in there somewhere.
The bar stayed high and dry...
I don't know about you, but 3 foot waves have always terrified me! ;-D
3' waves in my bedroom would get my attention.
Any chance that Osama bin Laden got washed out to sea?
The surfer who rode the tsunami into their lagoon was going to lead to their rescue!
I don't remember the exact details, but I believe the plan fell apart based on some stupid action by Gilligan.
Finally he reached an area where he could stand and fought his way to shore.
Getting dragged along is surfing? Call me crazy, or picky but there's nothing in this story that details him surfing the tsunami. I read this story based on what the title said and yet nothing in it indicates surfing.
Maybe the folks who make up titles should actually read the article first.
Being caught up in three foot waves full of jagged churning pieces of debris would terrify me.
I don't disagree but I am fairly sure that the original article has a typo. What I have read said that the wave was a wall of water 30 feet high, not 3 (hence my sarcasm).
It's not the height of the wave, it's the speed. I guarantee a three-foot wave going 30-40 MPH would knock you down. Then you better pray it doesn't smash you into anything, or you get impaled by the mini-torpedoes of debris in the water.
I always think of that episode of Gilligan when the subject of tsunamis comes up
Gimme a break. This is a bigger crock than the story of the WTC survivor who "surfed" the crumbling structure down to minor injuries.
bump for later
"I don't disagree but I am fairly sure that the original article has a typo. What I have read said that the wave was a wall of water 30 feet high, not 3 (hence my sarcasm)."
No. 30 feet would have killed virtually everyone in the Maldives. They are only a few feet above sea level. Since only about 50 people were killed and only 4 of 80 resorts were flooded, 3' high waves is probably correct. It is the strong currents that kill people.
Walk across a fast flowing three foot deep river and report back to us.
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