“I opened the window, walked out to the balcony, and I saw people look at the ocean,” said Ben Jones, a recent computer art graduate from the University at Buffalo. “Ten seconds after that people started pointing, and 30 seconds later people started screaming, and an ambient kind of panic hit the air.”
On December 26, 2004, the second largest tsunami recorded in the past 100 years devastated the coastal areas of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Malaysia. The 9.0 underground earthquake formed tsunamis hitting these countries and had enough force to travel approximately 60 million square kilometers across the Indian Ocean and break waves on the shores of Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania.
In particular, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand, the island where the Jones family was staying when the waves hit, was one of the most affected regions.
According to the Lonely Planet Tsunami Update, “Ko Phi Phi, a heavily touristed area was in peak season when the tsunami struck.”
“On Phi Phi, every hotel was completely full with families. We saw a lot of the same families and we became familiar with the island,” said Jones. “One of the scariest things about the tsunami was that the whole time we were there, the beaches were filled with kids. After the tsunami, you didn’t see or hear any of the kids.”
Ko Phi Phi is a southern island off the west coast of mainland Thailand. With its underdeveloped simplicity, Phi Phi is an island lined with beach front bungalows and two small hotels that make up the living arrangements for travelers, said Jones.
Since the Jones family was traveling together, they were fortunate enough to be staying in one of the two hotels on the island. This hotel soon became a safe-haven for a number of people as they tried to find higher ground from the waves.
“From my balcony on the second floor, I could see the pool and the beach, but palm trees were blocking the ocean,” said Jones. “I saw people pointing towards the ocean, and when I saw the local workers at the hotel start jogging away and then drop their trays and run, I knew something was wrong. I saw the first wave come in and hit the break wall, that’s when I saw my sister, Sarah, running. I will never forget how terrified her face looked.”
As Sarah ran up the stairs on the side of the hotel, the second of three consecutive waves began to hit the beach.
“The wave came slamming into the beach, with motor boats and long-tail boats in it,” said Jones. “If you were near the beach or got hit by a boat, you would not be okay.”
According to Andrew Saltalamacia, a senior Biology major at UB, even travelers in Krabi, Thailand, the closest mainland town to Ko Phi Phi felt the earthquake as well.
“I met a Swedish couple in Thailand during my winter break that said they were canoeing on a river in Krabi when it started flowing the wrong way. Their tour guide knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what,” he said.
As the waves tore through Ko Phi Phi, it destroyed nearly all of the ocean front bungalows and anything else that was not solidly cemented to the ground. Even the hotel the Joneses were staying in was not architecturally structured for such a natural disaster, as the hotel angled its hallways to face the beach and was not enclosed.
“The first wave wasn’t that big. The second wave was the big one and you could see a wall of water coming in,” Jones said. “It was the scariest noises. Water was just bubbling, and it came all the way up to the second floor.”
When the wave reached the second floor, Ben and Sarah ran up to the third floor of the hotel and waited for the rest of their family to return safely.
“We didn’t have our parents with us after the second set of waves came in,” said Jones. “I remember telling a lady who only had one of her kids in her arms, that she would find her husband and four other kids. I was telling people that their families were going to be okay, when I didn’t know where mine was.”
When the force of the waves depleted, the Jones family was able to reunite. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were able to make their way from the higher ground they had ran to while shopping in town. After climbing on top of a roof of an internet café to flee the waves, younger brother Tim found his family in the hotel as well.
By now the third floor of the hotel had become the floor for the injured. Many injuries of which were from debris.
“People were not really getting hit by the wave, but by the debris in it. Even if a small piece of wall hits you, you could get knocked out and drown in the wave,” said Jones. “If you got caught up in the branches of the palm trees you would have a tough time surviving.”
As the sun set on Ko Phi Phi, anxiety started to build up again amongst the survivors. Many people started to think that more waves were going to come through the island during the night.
People stayed in the jungle that night, recalled Jones. The jungle provided the highest ground above sea level, making it the safest place to stay over night.
After the night had passed, survivors went back to the beach to piece together what had happened the day before. As they walked along the beach, survivors were faced with the corpses of the animals and travelers who did not survive the tsunami, cementing this traumatic experience in the minds of everyone who lived through it.
