They tried to save an injured woman but she died that night, it was horrible
Irish teachers caught up in Indonesian earthquake tell of nightmare scenes as they fled the disaster
TWO Irish teachers witnessed a woman dying beside them after fleeing to the top of a hill to escape the Indonesian earthquake.
Patricia Mulraney from Kildare and Leona Reynolds from Leitrim described the chaos as people kicked, punched and dragged each other off boats in a frantic bid to escape the Gili Islands off the Indonesian coast.
One of the boats sank as people desperately clamoured on board to escape and the pair were abandoned on the beach.
The night before, Patricia and Leona hiked to the top of the highest point on the island away from collapsing buildings and a potential tsunami. The St Stephen’s Day tsunami of 2004 killed 230,000 people in 14 countries, and locals were terrified of drowning.
Patricia, from the Edenderry area on the Kildare/Offaly border, described locals trying to revive an injured woman who was carried up to the top of the hill.
‘It was obvious that she wasn’t going to make it and she died in the night. It was all so horrible,’ she said.
The death toll from Sunday’s earthquake reached 92 yesterday and is expected to rise in the coming days.
Patricia, 25, an accomplished fiddler and traditional musician, had agreed to tour the south-east Asian island republic with her 24year-old friend Leona, who is teaching in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The pair were travelling by speedboat to the Gili Islands on Sunday when there was a sudden shudder and a huge wave hit the boat.
‘It went right onto the boat and we almost capsized. I thought it was a storm at sea. I had no idea it was an earthquake,’ said Patricia.
When they got to the island, there was a line of Indonesians at the harbour urging them to come off the boat.
‘We thought they were trying to help us but as soon as they got us off the boat, they climbed on board and sped off. We were abandoned there on the island. Nobody wanted to help,’ she recalled.
A German couple told them there had been an earthquake and that they should get away from the coast as soon as possible before a tsunami hit. There was mass panic as Indonesians scrambled for boats to get to the mainland before waves hit the island, while others ran to high ground.
‘We could see that buildings were crashing down in the town so we couldn’t go in there,’ said Patricia.
She and Leona decided to follow the German couple to the island’s highest point. Locals cried out that there were snakes in the high grass fields they were passing through. Along the way, people fleeing to high ground begged them for blankets and covers.
‘One of the locals told us that if a tsunami hit, the water couldn’t reach higher than 30 metres so we tried to get that high up,’ said Patricia. ‘Everyone in the town crowded up at the top of the hill, carrying the injured with them.’
Patricia and Leona watched as people tried to revive a woman who had been severely injured by falling debris in the town.
Throughout the night, the woman’s condition worsened and she died in front of them.
Children were crying and people shouted out warnings as aftershocks hit the island throughout the night.
‘We didn’t sleep, everyone was waiting for another earthquake or tsunami and trying to figure out how to get off the island,’ Patricia explained.
The pair heard that some boat operators would try to escape with tourists the next morning so they made their way down to the harbour at 6am on Monday. When they got down there, there was ‘a complete nightmare’, said Patricia, with locals kicking, punching and pulling each other in a frantic fight for places on the vessels.
A man in a wheelchair was gashed on the side of the head and abandoned. One of the overcrowded boats sank in the harbour as more people clamoured on board. Those injured in the chaos tried to fight their way onto other boats.
‘They were screaming and shouting – it was absolute mayhem,’ Patricia added. The teachers knew they would be risking their lives trying to get a place on the boats and were stranded on the island.
‘We knew we couldn’t go anywhere there were high buildings because they might collapse, so we went to the swimming pool area of a hotel where there were no big buildings around,’ Patricia said.
‘The Irish Embassy weren’t much good. We asked them what to do but they kept saying to follow the instructions of the Indonesian authorities, but there was complete chaos.’
Police and locals refused to help the pair as competition for boats intensified. Eventually, they heard that a cruise ship would come later that day to rescue more than 1,000 people, so they queued up to wait.
‘We were lining up there for seven hours,’ said Patricia. ‘We could see people pushing and shoving each other further up the line because nobody knew how many places there would be.’
The ship arrived that night and they were able to board.
‘We were only on board ten minutes when a second earthquake hit and the sea was suddenly really choppy,’ Patricia said. ‘There was no air conditioning and it was so hot on board. That was one of the worst parts because it was a six-hour crossing to Bali.’
They finally arrived in Bali and flew to the capital, Jakarta. Last night, they were told it would cost more than €3,000 each for flights to Abu Dhabi, from where they had planned to fly straight to Ireland.
‘It’s too much money so we are staying tonight in Jakarta and hope to find a new flight tomorrow,’ Patricia said.
‘We really saw the worst in people but we also saw the good – the German tourists who helped us, and there was a Filipino man who let us recharge our phones when there was almost no power on the island.’
Thanks to his generosity, Patricia was able to call home to Kildare to tell her loved ones she was safe.
‘There was a few hours where we couldn’t get through to Ireland,’ she said.
‘That was the worst part, knowing that our families were worried about us and we couldn’t reach them. Being able to call them and let them know we are alive and safe was the best moment.’
‘We saw buildings crashing down’ ‘Being able to call home was the best’