Honeymoon couple ‘run for their lives’ as earthquake strikes
BRIDE FEARED SHE AND HER NEW HUSBAND WOULD DIE IN DISASTER ON PARADISE ISLAND
A BRIDE has spoken of the terrifying moment she feared she and her husband might die after being caught up in the devastating Indonesian earthquake on their honeymoon.
Charlotte Leach, 27, and husband Steven, 28, had to run for their lives as buildings collapsed around them when the 6.9 magnitude quake struck Gili Air island.
The earthquake, one of several to strike Indonesia over the past few weeks, killed more than 460 people and destroyed nearly three-quarters of the tiny island, which is just off the coast of Lombok.
Charlotte, who lives in Alkrington in Middleton, says the most frightening moment was learning that a tsunami warning had been issued, as there was no high ground nearby.
She was so convinced she would not make it during the August 6 quake that she contemplated contacting her family to say goodbye.
She said the decided against it, because if she had been killed, she did not want her family’s last memory of her to be an upsetting one.
Charlotte, a chartered accountant, said: “My husband and I were looking for a place to eat.
“I’d just come out of a shop and he was standing on a wall.
“All of a sudden he jumped down, and people started screaming. I don’t know how he knew but he said there was going to be an earthquake.
“All the shelves from the shop I’d just been in flew through the window. We just ran. Everyone was screaming, it was chaos.
“Eventually we found some open space, so we just sat there in the mud as it was the safest thing to do.
“More people came and sat with us. We sat there for five hours as we kept getting tremors.
“There was no electricity, there was no signal on our phones. An Indonesian guy kept getting updates and he told us the government has issued a tsunami warming.
“He told us the island has no high points, so if it does come, we’d all be gone. All we could do was wait it out.”
The tsunami warning was eventually withdrawn and the couple spent a restless night on sun loungers outside their badly-damaged hotel.
The following day, with no formal evacuation plan in place, they faced chaos as they and hundreds of other tourists tried to make it back to the mainland. They eventually managed to make their way off the island and back to the bigger Lombok island 15 hours later, after clubbing together with other holidaymakers and paying a local to take them there by boat.
Charlotte added: “The roof caved in at the hotel next to ours and killed people.
“When it was happening, I was scared to death, but there were kids screaming and crying so you’ve got to be brave for them.
“My heart was going through my chest all night. When the guy told us about the tsunami we thought that was going to be it.
“Even though there was no way of getting though to our families, I thought, should we tell them? I decided not to as I wouldn’t have wanted them to remember me like that, and there was nothing they could have done to help.”
Despite their ordeal, the couple decided to travel to Bali to carry on with their honeymoon.
Charlotte added: “We are the lucky ones. We have walked away lucky to be alive and all we have are bad memories. The experience was like a film – not like real life.
“We just feel for the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes and businesses – and the 460 people who lost their lives.”