Phang-Nga is north of Phuket, and it was where the tsunami did the most damage in Thailand. (If you want to see a map, click here.) Thailand's official death toll from the tsunami now stands at over 5,000, with about 3,000 still missing. Most of the deaths were in Phang-Nga, and particularly in Khao Lak, which is a stretch of beaches and resorts about an hour north of Phuket. I have seen a lengthy amateur video of the waves hitting Khao Lak. What is striking is that the water was not exceptionally high -- it is not the massively high wall of water that you might picture -- but just that it kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming.
Remember, we were there a week after the tsunami. Most of the bodies had been recovered (we were lucky enough not to see any), but the destruction was hard to credit. Cars looked as if they had been crumpled like tinfoil. A police boat was beached half a kilometer inland.
In Nam Kem, just north of Khao Lak, a relief camp had been set up for those made homeless by the tsunami. When we first went there, the camp had about 3,000 people in it. Only 250 were children, which -- if you know anything about Asian demographics -- is a very disturbing statistic. Some adults survived the tsunami; very few children did.
One of the children in the camp was Neung.
|
|