Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
When the earth shook the world
Some key events from this week in history are reflected in the following reports taken from the archives of the Argus’s 160-year-old titles
WHEN Flight SQ482 from Singapore touched down at Cape Town International Airport at 7.44am on December 29, 2004, Argus veteran Henri du Plessis was there to meet the passengers, a number of them shattered, but relieved to be alive.
There were “scenes of joy and tears as they and their relatives were reunited”. And little wonder – these were among the lucky ones to escape the devastating tsunami which had struck south Asian shorelines and islands three days earlier.
As Du Plessis wrote: “On Phuket, Cape Town’s Renée Gore slept through the devastation, David Gordon fled so fast he managed to stay dry and Pam and Ralph Murinik thought they were doomed, trapped in rising water in a hotel conference room.
“On the resort island of Phi Phi – made famous in the movie The Beach – Moghseena Sambo and her four children split pairs of shoes before fleeing the onrushing wall of water, running through thickets with cut and bleeding feet to get to higher ground.”
They were the lucky ones. On December 31, family and friends of Cape Town’s Morris Isaacson were united in grief when they said goodbye to the man they described as a “good son who always helped others”.
Isaacson and his partner, Dolores Ribeira of Bergvliet, were killed by the tsunami that hit Thailand and the rest of south-east Asia that Sunday (Boxing Day). More than 120 000 people, including tourists, were also killed.
Later in January, readers learned of the “peaceful stillness at the memorial service for Dillie Findlay in Simon’s Town – in stark contrast to the roaring mountain of water that claimed her life on the Thai island of Phi Phi.
“Her body has not been recovered but a memorial service was held at the Simon’s Town Anglican Church, St Francis of Assisi. Findlay, 45, was on the beach on a family holiday when the colossal wave struck. Her husband George, 9-year-old daughter Sara, her sister Riekie’s husband Phillip Finestone and their four children made up the group.
“George Findlay and Phillip Finestone managed get the children to safety by climbing on to the roof of a building and into the branches of surrounding trees. They then ran into the mountains when they heard the approach of the second tsunami .”
Two Cape Town surgeons who went to Thailand to help victims described their experiences in the devastated country as “sobering, almost extra-terrestrial” in a Weekend Argus report.
“Heinz Röde, head of the department of paediatric surgery at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, and Angus Alexander, also a surgeon at the hospital, gave up their leave to go to Thailand.
They were accompanied by John Gorman, formerly an executive member of the Friends of the Hospital Association. Weekend Argus interviewed them when they returned to Cape Town.
“Röde said: ‘Ten days after the tsunami hit the coast, we saw 5 000 putrefying bodies laid out in a huge tent in a small town about 50km north of Phuket.
“The stench and the tension were indescribable. There were some terrible sights.. Everyone involved, including the experts, is going to suffer post-traumatic stress for years.”
The survivors’ accounts were dramatic.
“David Gordon, who had been holidaying on Phuket with other Capetonians, told how he had been sitting facing the ocean when he suddenly saw a huge swell of water on the ocean and a boat being hurled high into the air.
“They had felt a tremor about 8am, but had not given it much thought until they saw the huge surge heading their way. It was amazing. The beachfront was devastated, but people as close as two blocks up from the ocean did not even know what had happened. I ran up on to higher ground and at one point managed to get on the back of a bakkie. I was never in the water,” he said.
“Renee Gore, in Gordon’s group, said she had been sleeping in, having arrived only the day before. ‘I woke up at about 11am to the sound of a car constantly hooting. When I looked over my balcony, I saw debris and cars on top of one other. I did not know what had happened. When I left my hotel room, everything was dark, there was no electricity, only a security man in the corridor with a flashlight.
“‘He could speak no English and I told him I wanted to go down to breakfast, but he shook his head and said: “No, up, up!” People were crying and there were several injured. An Australian woman was crying hysterically for her child, who was was found unharmed under a car in the foyer.’
“Pam and Ralph Murinik and their son Dean were having breakfast with Gordon and his friend Rael Levitt when Gordon saw the water rise and shouted in alarm.
“‘We got up and ran, but the water caught us. My wife fell down under the water and so did I, but Dean pulled us up and then the current took us and swept us along the hotel property for about 400m,’ a still shocked Murinik said.
“‘The water rose up to our mouths and noses and I turned to my family and said we were doomed. Then the water started receding and we just got together and hugged’.”
The following is the main report the day after.
December 27, 2004
Survivors speak as toll tops
14 000. The wave of death
Quake shakes the whole planet
The entire Earth shook as the fourth biggest earthquake in a century smashed towering waves into South Asian shorelines – with a death toll at more than 14 000 and rising today.
Thousands more were missing, feared dead.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off Indonesia yesterday morning shoved the whole island of Sumatra about 30m south-west.
It pushed up a gigantic mass of water that collapsed into a fast-moving tsunami, or seismic sea wave, across the Indian Ocean.
The whole planet was “vibrating” and the quake had even disturbed the Earth’s rotation, said Enzo Boschi of Italy’s Geophysics Institute.
India’s weather bureau warned today that more tsunamis could strike over the next couple of days but said they would be smaller than yesterday’s – no more than half the size.
Yesterday’s train of waves, 10m high and travelling at up to 550km/h, slammed into coastlines nearly 2 000km apart, washing away whole villages and dragging sunbathers, snorkellers and fishing boats out to sea along with huge quantities of debris.
In Indonesia alone the death toll had reached 4 448, in Sri Lanka it was up to 4 890, in India 4 697 and in Thailand up to 430. Up to 35 000 were injured and 1.5 million left homeless .
As the waters receded, holidaymakers became stretcher-bearers, carrying casualties from devastated beaches.
Bodies washed up on beaches or found hanging in trees.
Heartbroken parents told how children had been torn from their arms, others watched helplessly as loved ones were swept away.
Hundreds of tourists were left with what they were wearing – their swimsuits.
It was “a disaster film come true” when the tsunami appeared as a speck on the horizon and quickly grew into a mountainous threat.
Thousands saw it coming and, with only seconds to spare, fled to higher ground. Others not so fortunate. ITN Asia correspondent John Irvine, holidaying on Ko Yo near Phuket, told how he had snatched up his 5-yearold son and sprinted for safety. “Peter was looking out to sea mesmerised, hypnotised by the wall of water,” he said.
“I grabbed him. I could hear the rush behind me and I could see the wall of water coming towards us. When we were about 25 to 50 yards from the beach it caught up with us and washed us another 50 yards into a mangrove swamp.
“We were lucky not to have been hit by all the debris that the wave was carrying with it.”
Financial consultant Alan Burr of Kent, UK, told how his son, also Alan, had been staying in a seafront hotel which took the full impact at the resort of Patong on Phuket.
“Alan told me a shark had somehow ended up in the hotel swimming pool.
“It is a scene of absolute devastation. Alan said he had seen a young child swept away out of his mother’s arms in a flooded street – just the most horrific sights.”
“Death came from the sea,” said Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry, India. “The waves kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?”