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| Thursday, 06 January 2005 |
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Amid the chaos and misery emerge remarkable tales of survival PARIS, Wednesday (AFP) A woman rescued after five days adrift at sea, children miraculously emerging from the wreckage intact, and some ingenious tales of escape: Asia's tsunami disaster has spawned remarkable stories of survival. Amid the chaos and misery wrought by the tumultuous waves of water that shattered the lives of millions of people last week, heart-wrenching cases continue to surface from the devastation. But they are few and far between, with nearly 150,000 dead and countless more missing. In one rare success story that stunned rescue workers, Anthony Praveen, 8, opened his eyes and sat up as grave diggers were about to bury him in the southern Indian town of Velankanni. He was in a stupor among a pile of corpses taken from a morgue to be buried at a beach grave and only managed to communicate in the nick of time, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported from the town. Elsewhere, a Malaysian fishing boat rescued an Acehnese woman who had been drifting in the Indian Ocean for five days after being washed away by the force of waves. Housewife Malawati, 23, was found floating alive Friday not far from the shores of Indonesia's Aceh, the area hardest hit by the December 26 disaster, a Malaysian International Tuna Port official told Bernama news agency. The woman, sun-burnt and suffering fish bites, was clinging to an uprooted palm trunk which had clusters of fruit on it, helping her get through the ordeal. "From initial information received from the crew, the woman, with leg injuries, is safe," the official said. Another amazing tale of survival involved six-year-old Zoe Shiu, who escaped the tragedy that ravaged Thailand's western coast by clinging to a large floating sofa cushion. The little girl, who has US and Thai passports, was playing in the swimming pool of the Sofitel Magic Lagoon resort in Khao Lak north of Phuket when the onrushing water swept the Andaman coast. She clung on to the cushion which eventually led her to an overturned boat that a hotel maid was also reaching for. The two managed to turn over the boat and got in safely. The plucky girl is the only member of her family known to have survived and has been flown to Singapore to recover with an aunt, Singapore news reports said. Tens of thousands of children were killed in the horror of that day, too small and too weak to run or hold onto trees or debris, which makes new-born S. Tulasi extremely lucky to have survived. The 20-day-old baby was sleeping on a mattress which floated her to safety after Malaysia's Penang island was hit by walls of water, local media reported. Her mother Annal Mary fought her way through the swirling waters to the room where the baby was sleeping. "Thank God the mattress was floating in about 1.5 metres (5 feet) of water and my baby was crying," said Suppiah. Almash Javeed, 10, was found emaciated and barely able to speak after spending four days in the forests of the Andaman Islands after fleeing the chaos that left her an orphan. "The little girl escaped to the forests and hid there for four days ... She had nothing to eat and little water to drink," lawmaker Manooranjan Bhakta told AFP. "And then in that condition with great difficulty she along with some other survivors reached Nancouri. She was almost dead." Badly bruised 13-year-old Meghna Rajshekhar was found alive after drifting at sea on a door for two days. Meghna was discovered walking in a daze along a beach after clinging to the piece of wood when giant waves swept her, her family and dozens of others off the Indian Ocean's Car Nicobar island. "This was a miracle in the midst of the disaster the tsunami wrought," the commander of the air base station on Nicobar V.V. Bandhopadhya said. Just as remarkable were the tales told by dazed survivors, who dug into their deepest pockets of resolve to beat the odds and live to see another day. Anna Serafino, who lives part of the year in Patong, near Phuket in Thailand, grabbed her motorcycle and accelerated away seconds before the waves smashed into the village. "I felt the ground tremble and I got out of my house as quickly as I could," she said. "I grabbed my bike and headed for the hills. I'd hardly reached high ground when I saw a wave three or four meters (nine to 12 feet) high crash down on the village." When she returned, she found everything destroyed with bodies "floating like dead fishes". |
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