Life and death choices for victims
south lampung — Udin Ahok was forced to make a choice that no one would ever want to make: save his wife or his mother and baby.
The 46-year-old Indonesian had just gone to sleep on Saturday evening when — without warning — a wall of water smashed into his house in Way Muli village on the coast of Sumatra.
Panicked, he fought to reach his sleeping 70-year-old mother and one-year-old son but then he saw his wife about to drown in the swirling waters.
He plucked her to safety and they survived the fury of a volcano-triggered tsunami that smashed into Indonesia’s coast, killing more than 400 people who had no time to escape.
Ahok’s mother and baby were found dead under mountains of debris.
“I didn’t have time to save my mother and son,” a weeping Ahok said from a local shelter for evacuees in one of the stricken region’s hardest-hit areas.
“I regret it so much. I can only hope they’ve been given a place in God’s hands.”
Sulistiwati, another Way Muli resident who is six months pregnant, only survived thanks to a neighbour who saw her tumble into the salty water.
“Luckily, he spotted me and pulled me out of the wave and we ran to higher ground with our other neighbours,” she said.
“It was pitch black. I didn’t know I could run that fast being pregnant. It was so scary. We waited for a few hours until the water went down.”
Across the Sunda Strait in Java island, Saki stood amidst the rubble of what was once Sumber Jaya village and wondered aloud how he would get his life back on track.
“I can’t rebuild, everything is gone — my clothes, my money,” he said.
“I had 19 million rupiah ($1,300) inside the house,” said the 60-year-old, who has been left with nothing but his white skull cap, a T-shirt and a sarong.
“I’m sleeping at the mosque and every day I come back here because I had lots of money that has been lost inside (the house).” —
I didn’t have time to save my mother and son. I regret it so much. I can only hope they’ve been given a place in God’s hands
Udin Ahok, A tsunami victim