Two Durban women were celebrating life on Wednesday after a frightening four hours on a little island in the south of Thailand.
Alison Lawrence and Renate Dannewitz were on their way to a bar on picturesque Railay beach, part of the Krabi Islands, when a tsunami warning siren shattered the idyllic late afternoon. Then all hell broke loose.
Earlier they had SMSed friends back in SA about their “lobster suntans”, how they were going rock climbing the next day and plans for Lawrence’s birthday party when they returned next week.
Then, at 11.28am SA time, the shock message came through.
“We’re having tsunami aftershock,” wrote Alison. “We’re have to run to high point. We’re so scared… I’m not joking, we are petrified.”
And within a few seconds, the second one: “Tsunami warning siren gone off and we ran. Please pray for us… so scared.”
A tsunami warning had been issued for the entire Indian Ocean region after a powerful 8.6 magnitude earthquake and a series of strong aftershocks struck off Indonesia, sending people scurrying from buildings as far away as southern India.
Once Lawrence and Dannewitz had reached higher ground and, with holidaymakers and locals, found shelter from thunder and lightning in a house in the forest, Lawrence explained their terror.
“We had just finished SMSing you and were walking to our local bar to have a cocktail at about 4.30pm Thai time and a siren went. I have never seen such fear. Locals then foreigners started screaming trying to shut roller doors. And then everyone just running. We then realised tsunami. The locals were crying and that petrified me. People’s slops were breaking as we all ran to the highest point. That’s when I hit a wobbly and burst into tears.”
A while later Lawrence said: “There’s a whole lot of us together. We can hear the monkeys on the tops of the cliffs. It’s bizarre… they must have run as we did.”
Then at 1.30pm the message friends had been waiting for: “We have moved to a bar Ya Ya which is near the higher ground – we’re having a drink with the rest. But we still can’t go down yet – we have to wait for the okay signal.”
At 3.30pm: “All cool. Warning lifted. We have just come back down to the beach. Bit quiet and subdued down here but things picking up. Bars slowly putting lights on and opening for service. We got down at 8.15pm Thai time. All fine but our backs are sore – must be from the stress. Not sure how we’re going to sleep tonight. Please tell everyone we are fine.”
Lawrence and Dannewitz, who are due home on Monday, are adamant that they will continue to enjoy their holiday, but, like the locals, are extremely relieved that the warning was just a scare.
Another group, including 27 South Africans, was evacuated to higher ground in the Thai resort town of Patong. The group was there for a golf trip and included radio DJ Clarence Ford and performer Alistair Izobell.
Izobell said via e-mail that they were on a boat on their way back from visiting islands and did not feel the quake.
“Everyone is very calm. The hotel staff were in a state wanting to track us down and advise that we were not to come back to the hotel,” Izobell said.
Late on Wednesday, SA’s tsunami warning was lifted, Cape Town’s disaster risk management centre said.
The Mercury