The Hindu : National : Tsunami tales of horror recounted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

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National

Tsunami tales of horror recounted

By A Correspondent

RANCHI, JAN. 10. Survivors of the tsunami all have miraculous tales to tell. People from the Jharkhand capital of Ranchi, who had visited Tamil Nadu when the tsunami hit on December 26, recently returned to the city.

Niraj Pathak and his family were on board a boat to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial when the tsunami hit. "It was about 9.45 a.m., when we noticed that the waves were moving rather unusually, but we didn't think anything of it. Suddenly, a 30 to 40-foot wall of water came rushing towards us and the boat tilted nearly 90 degrees. I told my wife and children to hold on as tightly as they could, but I had no hope of surviving. On the shore we could see people scurrying for shelter. Boats broke away from their moorings. Everything seemed to go under water. Another boat carrying another 400 passengers that had left for the Vivekananda Rock just before us was latched to ours. 800 lives were at stake — in the middle of the sea," he said.

By 10.15 a.m., the sea was calm again, he said, but everything was in disarray. Rashmi Sinha, another resident of Ranchi, had a narrow escape at the Marina Beach in Chennai. She had gone to Chennai as part of the baseball team of Ranchi University. She was at the Marina with a couple of friends when the tsunami struck. She and her friends were swept away but she managed to hold on to the branch of a tree and keep her head above water. Although she has returned home safely, she is still haunted by the tsunami in which her friends died.

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