News on DB Members affected by Asia Quake and Tsunami

[Erik]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Good to hear they are alive. Hopefully the injuries heal quickly and they get home soon.
Cheers,
Erik Y.

 

[Amphibious]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

just got word some family friends/classmates were vacationing in Phuket when the quake/wave hit. no one has heard from them since. hoping for the best...
Glad to hear from Iya.

 

[Tony M]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Amphibious we are sorry to to hear about your friends and hope they are well, dont give up hope, miricales do happen, just a couple of hours ago we thought our loved ones had perished.
Another update, spoke to my brother by sat phone, he has broken both legs and an arm, Alison is in worse shape having had a boat hit her inside the house and is still semi concious but will be ok aparently, she has asked after Sara, we assume its the one mentiond here and have passed on the news. They are being transfered somewhere else now that they have been found, we hope they can be brought home in the next week
Thanks again everybody. we will pray for all the others who are in the same situation and those who have lost.
Tony

 

[shaneshac]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

I am gobsmacked

I hope Alison gets better.

Hit by a Boat INSIDE the house?????

Man this sounds surreal. Hope the worst is now behind them and they can return home safetly.

Nice to hear from you Sara

Shane

 

[dallasdiver]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Thank goodness they are OK, my condolences to the ones that weren't so fortunate. When you see these type of terrible things on T.V., you think how awful, but it really hits home when someone you know is involved.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Hi everyone,

Reports continue to come in of massive destruction and loss of life. Members of the diving industry and trying to come together to help where possible and DB is no exception.

I'm overjoyed to hear about Alison and Colin, and I pledge to do anything possible to help. DB reaches hundreds of thousands of eyeballs and I want us to use this for good!

If anyone wants to get messages out or help co-ordinate any efforts please let me know directly via email (stephan.whelan@deeperblue.net) or via contact numbers (please leave messages if no-one available): tel: +1 888 918 8530(US)/+44 845 280 3239(UK), fax: +1 888 918 8530(US)/+44 870 164 1037(UK).

My thoughts go out to everyone in the affected areas at this time!

 

[Bindlestitch]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Praise God for the good news about those who have been found and survived.
My prayers are with all those affected by this tradgedy.
God bless you all my friends.
Stitch

 

[flyboy748]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Glad to hear you're ok Sara...

Hope to hear from Alison and Colin soon too. Get well soon! Thanks for keeping us informed Tony.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those injured or who are missing loved ones.

Aaron

 

[island_sands]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

i am so relieved! I have been worried sick especially after Tony said that they found the house with all their belongings but they were nowhere to be seen. Please pass on our joys and thankfulness to them if you talk to them again. I hope that they recover and that Alison comes around soon...
we are so so fortunate to have been where we were at the time, it seems that two islands down here were not affected and the surrounding ones are under water or damaged. we are receiving many tourists from other islands here on Sun Island and their staff are doubling up in rooms in order to take in more stranded tourists.
Apparently the guests from Paradise Island were thrown out of their over water bungalows and had to swim to beach. lucky no-one was drowned (apparently). it's difficult to get exact accounts of anything.
Iya - good to hear that you are well!

Alison and Colin - lots of hugs and hope that you are kept safe and being looked after. Look forward to hearing more news.
Willl be going back to work today so won't be online at Reethi Rah for a couple of days apparently but the mobiles are working now and again.

We feel very very helpless not being able to assist any of the locals. The government has set up help lines and are sending out boats to evacuate the local islands. the houses are all coral structures so nothing withstood the power of the sea.

Please please if any of you have the power to assist, please help the emergency services/aids that are setup... so many poor and helpless people are left homeless. There are going to be food shortages very soon and the locals are really going to need help.

Thanks for all your wishes and thoughts, PMs, emails etc.

http://www.visitaddu.com/ for local updates.

We have sent off all the labourers off our island and we are yet to find out now what the procedure will be... the clean up is going to be major and the damage is millions of dollars. the hotel was almost finished and due toopen in march.

will keep you all posted.. please keep posting news of Alison and Colin as you get it.

best regards to all
Sara

 

[Tony M]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Hi again
the early morning news is that they are now in a hospital being cared for properly,both are doing well and Ali's condition has improved overnight; she has a few broken ribs along a load of dislocations by the sound of it and has fully regained conciousness and is talking again. Her dad managed a few words by phone this morning,so god willing they will both be home soon.
Thanks again guy's they will be touched to see the concern you've shown them
Tony

 

[Wishbone]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

Hey I am really glad to hear everyone is alive! It's such a huge disaster! Everyone who was there when it happened should thank God and light a candle on this date for the rest of their lives...
I really hope Alison and Colin get well sooner and that none of the injuries would keep then out of the sea for too long... They'd have quite a story to tell!
My uncle is vactioning on the Maldives now. They were ten minutes out at sea heading for a diving spot when the wave hit their island. Strangely enough, noone on the boat even realised something bad is happening until they called them back on the radio. Took then one hour to travel back - probably cause of the current made by the retreating water. I freaked out here when I saw the news, but I got an SMS from him saying he missed all the action again and the only actual damage they suffered is the fact there was no ice for the gin (no power)...
He stopped joking about it quite fast though - since there was no power, they had no idea about the scale of the disaster.

I just read the news about asian countries cosidering joining the disaster warning network... That's what we call an umbrella after the rain. Many lives could have been saved...

 

[Oldsarge]

This will go down in history as a disaster of the same magnitude as the eruption of Krakatoa at the dawn of the previous century. The mechanism is the same as well, seismic ocean surges. Perhaps, though, like the sinking of the Titanic some good will eventually come of it. Currently there is no tsunami warning system in place in the Indian Ocean though the Pacific has a very sophisticated one and I believe that there is one in place for the Atlantic, as well. All the affected governments in the Indian basin are chagrined and aghast that such a thing could possibly not exist. Steps are being taken to correct so egregious an oversight. Major obstacles remain to be overcome, though, as such systems are not cheap and the infrastructure to make them effective is badly lacking. IMO, the hotels that profit from the dollars of the tourists and the low costs of the local labor are the ones best able to foot the bill for improving the communications along the beach areas once the system is in place and the insurance claims have made possible reconstruction.

 

[Adrian]

Hola Sara! "Que paliza" to say the least!!! Glad to hear from you, and thanks Tony, for being the messenger of such good news from Alison and Colin, despite their wounds. Seeing how the death toll is rising it's a miracle they survived. I hope they recover soon and with no sequels. Our family will be definitely be donating money to the relief agencies.

I'm also happy to have recieved an email form a good friend who was visitiing Chennai (Madras) and they are alright as well, even though they had to run for their lives.

Adrian

 

[donmoore]

Thank God for keeping Alison and Colin alive as well as the other friends and family of the board. Get well soon!
don

 

[rcerdena]

Im glad to hear that they are ok in all that disaster.
Hope they get well soon,

Cheers,

Roberto

 

[Freediver81]

Hello Everyone!

I'm glad to hear that all of our dear missing members are alive!

After I had a call from my friend today it turned out that I misunderstood him the day before and it turned out that my friend was in koh phi phi at the time of the Tsunami!

He was staying on the Island of koh lanta and took a day trip with his cousin to the Island of koh phi phi!

They were walking on the beach when the say the water retreating and assumed it was a freak low tide and the decided to walk towards the water line!!!!!!!!
Suddenly they say a high wall of water coming towards them and they both ran like crazy probably breaking a world record in 100m sprint!

When they reached the beach they climbed on top of one of the bungalows and they were dropped off when the Tsunami hit them!
My friend is amazingly ok but his cousin suffered an injury to his leg!
Its really a miracle since he was the furthest out on the beach then all the people one the beach of koh phi phi and he could have been easily the first casualty but thankfull to gods mercy he survived!
as soon as the water started retreating he started taking care of the wounded by pressing on their bleeding areas and comforting them!

He also broke into several hotel rooms and put the serioulsy wounded on the beds till help arrived! He told me that he helped dosens of people and its was very metaly rewarding!

He and his cousin lost contact of each other for 24hrs since his cousin was taken by helicopter to be treated for his injury and my friend didn't know where he was and how was he but our embassy braught them together the second day in bangkok!

He was a bit traumatised by the whole experience but he is glad to be alive after he has seen his close encounter with death!!!

The authority's didn't let him get back to Koh lanta since it was also attacked by the Tsunami and they feared of more Tsunami's!

He and his cousin unfortunately lost all of their baggage money and passoports but they said they are willing to trade that for their lives any day!

He also said that it was a great thing to see that everybody was giving a hand and helping each other!

As I type these words they are on the plane back home, which is a shame since they were supposed to return on the 20th of January!!!

My heart and thougts are with the family's of the dead and missing! :waterwork

The most amazing part of the whole thing is that I was going to give him a suprise visit on the Island yesterday but I cancelled my flight as soon as the news came!!


Said

 

[icarus pacific]

Re: News on DB Members affected by Sumtra Earthquake and Tsunami Thread

I'm overjoyed to hear about Alison and Colin, and I pledge to do anything possible to help. DB reaches hundreds of thousands of eyeballs and I want us to use this for good! My thoughts go out to everyone in the affected areas at this time!

Very smooth boss.
Indeed, DB is everywhere and I'm glad as well to hear of our members being safe.


I heard of the disaster on the plane going home from the cold and rough waters of the North Sea where I'd been on a dive job for the last month or so, and it put into perspective the the line about someone always having it worse. All I had to bitch about was the lousy DVD's and laundry the support ship sent down and here I am now looking at the utter ruin of a land(s) and it's families.

My heart goes to those that are enduring the pain of a lost loved one(s) and to those that are enduring the even greater pain of not knowing the whereabouts of their loved ones. It's hard to put a meaning to something like this...

 

[island_sands]

Dear All!

Thank you for all your phone calls, emails and sms... we are all fine here, fortunately! Our island Reethi Rah was covered with up to waist high water in some areas and the tidal wave washed over the whole island taking with it, millions of dollars of damage, and 700mm of height, which will have to be rebuilt. (Bring on the dredger again)

However, clean up process has already started and we have also had to send all the labourers home because we maybe running out of food and water supplies shortly. It all happened in the space of about 15 minutes and it was absolute pandemonium. According to our colleagues, the tide pulled back so much before bring a second wave, that the whole of the lagoon on the west side was dry! You could have walked from here to the next island (Summer island). that lasted about 5 minutes and then the big splurge came.. people just running away from the beach to safety.

To top it all, we are having bad storms and constant rain. So we are walking in deep puddles and you have no idea whether its rain water or grey water. Or what you are standing on! (yuk!) The laundry was flooded so the boilers are broken and no washing can be done. The stores were also flooded so 1000s of kilos of rice, flour, etc have been spoiled. New data cables were placed immediately and we now have telephones and land lines again. We have a temporary canteen set up outside and in spite of the situation the chefs are still pulling good curries and rice out of their sleeves. People are in mixed spirits, all the beer was washed away, so they were three days without any alcohol (for some folks on this island that's like a week with no food... ) ) A lot of the people were totally freaked out by being in just knee deep water but i guess a lot of them cant swim... must have been frightening. Apparently one guy on Reethi Rah kept his bright yellow lifejacket on even after the tide pulled back.

You can see the water line where the water came up to and fortunately our rooms had water up to the step but they were high enough for the water not to seep inside. Gavin was happy to hear that his second wife and child (his electric guitar and new amplifier)) were not damaged ))

Our island was almost complete and due to open in March. This will of course now be delayed and we do not know the outcome yet, or the first way forward. Most expats from Reethi Rah are being sent home this week. Gavin and I are still staying on, according to latest information, but we are sending home by DHL all our belongings and keeping just the basics here. A lot of furniture and shopfitting has to be redone, especially for the Spa, which was the worst damage of all. All the timber work is badly damaged and some of the pools are filled up with sand and debris.

Cleanup has started but full construction cannot continue yet as supply boats are being used to rescue and supply the rest of the Maldives and also the imminent food shortage will also determine that we cannot bring a labour force back as yet.

So much uncertainty is worrying, but at least we are all safe and had relatively few injuries. One guy had a seizure and the doctor pronounced him DOA. (Apparently there was a delay getting him to the clinic?) So the labourers tried to kill the doctor and we had to send him to Male' for safety!!! I can just imagine that its possible it was delayed though, as last year we had a drowning and it took them ages to bring the guy back to the island and in spite of all the CPR I did there was actually no way to bring him around. This is meaning of life over here... not much!

We have all of our possessions and all our friends are safe. On Reethi Rah the water brought all the boats' hulls right up to the jetty and they had to push them back to avoid damage, or washing up onto the dock. Containers of furniture, tools, and electronic equipment sailed down the beach and the all temporary accommodation (tents) where all the labourers were staying was washed away. A panic started and the whole labour force sat on the roofs of the building scared that a second Tsunami was on the way. 800 labourers have been removed from the island in 2 days and have all been sent back to their countries. Lots of them were from Sri Lanka and India so are anxious to find their own families who have also suffered the wrath of the Tsunami, on a much larger scale.

During the tidal wave we were on a short holiday in Sun Island, Ari Atoll. We are still so fortunate as we did not experience one single wave on the island where we were staying. We moved a few sun loungers back and the tide came up a little, the current changed and became very strong, but other than that, it was a normal day. By some design or grace the tidal wave brought no damage to the island, yet the neighbouring islands were devastated. We received guests from Fun Island, Paradise Island, Royal Island, which were totally under water or washed out, where the guests had climbed on to roofs and waited 12 hours before any help was received. All mobile connections and land lines were out of order.

All the guests on Fun Island lost almost everything, some guests arrived to Sun Island in just their bathing costumes. Passports were lost, money, airtickets and clothes. A list was made by the airlines of all tourists and on that basis they have been taken to the airport and allowed to travel home. The hotel we stayed in made no exceptions for these poor people who lost everything or were transferred from other resorts. They kept us one extra night free of charge, as they had to mobilise everyone, and then charged us 422USD to stay an extra night as we were told not to return to Reethi Rah for another day. That was for a bog standard room (we had to be downgraded as our room had already been sold and they weren't expecting us to stay on more nights). They charged 10USD per day to watch news on TV and made no allowances for anyone.

A lot of tourists are in total shock. The family next to me on my transfer boat were from Fun Island. They were having breakfast and their kids were still in the bungalow. All of a sudden they were in knee deep water... they ran to the room to find the children on the bed, and the bed was already floating. Fortunately they saved their kids from being swept away but lost everything else. Some people were locked in their rooms, the water built up and with the pressure the windows smashed and guests were sent flying on to the beach. Some tourists wore their lifejackets up to two days after the Tsunami, even to the dining room and wouldn't go any where near the beach. Apparently a lot of Italian tourists caused a mass hysteria on Holiday Island and the Italian military has flown to the Maldives to bring them food and also to take them home. A lot of Italian charter flights were cancelled.

Club Med in Male is apparently totally devastated, and the water bungalows at Paradise island have hardly anything left. The guests staying in those over water structures had to swim for their lives to the beach.

2/3rds of the resorts in Maldives are damaged.

The airport was packed when we arrived yesterday, and sodas were sold at 3USD a bottle. Everyone seems to be trying to make their last buck. Male', the capital city has suffered great devastation in some areas and a lot of the reinforcing/revetments around the city island is cracked or simply destroyed. I have not heard any missing diver reports yet or if any liveaboards were affected. Hopefully there are none. However, the government is being very choosy about what information they want to release.

Schools in Male have been filled with refugees and tourists alike. Please don't hesitate to send clothes and blankets to any of the aid centres provided. As such the Maldivians live quite a basic and frugal life and that is now all lost. It is all so very sad and also very worrying.

Many of the local islands in Maldives have been washed away. 100s of coral houses disappeared, and 1000s of Maldivians have been washed out of their homes. They have no money, no food, no clothes, no fresh water. Fishing boats were overturned, as reported by our own supply boats, they saw many overturned boats in the channel but no sign of any passengers. The government has taken some action but they are definitely holding back from the international press the actual devastation of this country. They are sending aid to "the areas most needed" as said by officials, but how and where those areas are, and how the choices are made, we do not know.

Many injuries have incurred and at least 60 deaths are reported. Many people are missing and it's difficult to establish what is happening in the other atolls, other than local reports and also the government TV. (which also maybe playing it down). However, 12000 people have been displaced (population of some 270000, of which 80000 live in Male').

Once again thanks to everyone for remembering us out here and I will try to keep you all posted as much as possible. It's going to take at least 2 months to clean up properly and then a lot of replacement furniture has to be made.

Email me if you want to receive any photographs!

Once again thanks a million for all your well wishes... please keep in your thoughts all of the poor Maldivians who are stranded and pray for their well being and safety.

 

[Tony M]

I believe that Colin & Ali are on the way home or are about to leave Sri Lanka, we only found out by second hand news, we can only imagine the chaos there. I'm pretty sure they will be online in the near future so I'll love you and leave you unless there is any other news or messages to be relayed.
Thank you all again. Now what we all need to do is to do what we can to help the situation out there.
Tony

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Hello everyone. Our Managing Editor, Malcolm James, has just let me know that he is in Phuket as part of a Fox News crew covering the disaster. We will be bringing you more details on how to help locate loved ones and friends. In the meantime here is a partial list of agencies collecting donations as part of the aid effort.

Cafod
Care International

International Red Cross

Medecins Sans Frontieres

Oxfam

Save The Children

Unicef

UN World Food Programme

World Vision

Islamic Relief