[tbhotia]

Citizens (Tour Groups) of Asia’s World City shows true colour in Phuket and the staffs of the Burasari Resorts and the people of Thailand show true colour of what it means to be humane under threat.

What a dark day it was on boxing day in Southwest Thailand, without any warning the beaches were dry, boats that were out in sea were now lying on the bed of the sea, but within minutes the true nature of nature turned the tide and sea water began to return, filling the beach so fast that people hardly had enough time to think and realize what was about to happen. While this was happening, we had just finished our breakfast. It was around 10 am, later than normal days. We had taken the map out and discussed our trip for today, south end of Phuket. Just as we began to wrap up things at the table, we heard a huge explosion, then another and another, at this time all of us where unaware of what was going on, some of the hotel staff at Burasari decide to go and check out the explosion. Within seconds they all came back running and screaming to all people to run and get in the building, at this time we were under the impression that a terrorist attack was in the progress and that they were storming the hotel premises, but as we all rushed to the first floor they began to scream out “get to the roof not your rooms”, we all headed to the fourth floor and began to look down at the hotel premises and realized that we where not under attack, water had enter the surrounding and had reached the first floor and we saw a body of a Caucasian male floating in a near by ally way, judging by the sign colour the person had not been in Phuket long.

It was chaos, people screaming, crying and uncertain of what was to come and unsure of what had just happened. Into our first hour of chaos, people started calling others on their mobile phones and started sharing information, finally we started to put together a picture of what had just happened, the earthquake in Indonesia which was felt in the Patong at around seven or eight am and then Tsunami that followed after a few hours (2-3). As the hotel staff began to gather information from wherever they could, they quickly put together a plan to stabilise the panic and structure the process of nurturing and planning a possible evacuation.

Finally after sitting on the roof for 4 hours waiting for more Tsunamis to hit the town of Patong, the management decided that it was better to being evacuating the guests as soon as possible before the next wave of waves. They (management) had received information from Bangkok that the next set of waves were going to hit Patong in a 1 hours time, we were quickly brief by the management and asked to leave the hotel as soon as possible. A group hotel staff and we began a journey to higher ground, as we left the hotel building we saw the debris in the swimming pools, the lobby was trashed and the carpark was stacked with cars (2 storey high) belonging to the hotel and guest As we came on the street which to the right linked us to the main road away from the beach, what we saw was just absolute madness, destruction that I’ve never experienced before. I had hired a motorbike from a shop near our hotel and as I looked to see if it had survived the destruction, I was shocked with what I saw, all the shops along that street was completely destroyed beyond recognition, I was sad as we had made many friends along that street and now they may not have made it. I also had left my passport as a deposit for the bike and the bike was nowhere to be found. We began towards the main road and every where there was trucks, cars, bikes, jetskies all over the place, hotel with their ground floors all destroyed and debris everywhere. I also noticed something unusual, the locals were walking around and picking up fish from the water puddles and the drains, these fish where everywhere, we found them up to around a one kilometer plus inland. After walking for over twenty or thirty minutes we realized that some of the people were not aware of the situation just down the road, these people where just sitting in the bars and restaurants, merrily eating and drinking away, unmoved be seeing a exodus of people heading to higher grounds.

After minutes of walking uphill there was a massive scream of people, cars, bikes all heading uphill and the people screaming “Run, Run, Run”, we ran uphill for around ten minutes and realized that this a false alarm caused by panic that started at the beach and later carried through the crowds and later ending near us, we were a long way from the hotel and the beach, around two kilometers away (my guess). During this panic, we lost eight members of our group (guests) as they managed to climb onto a pickup truck, me and my girlfriend and the hotel staff where left behind and the truck drove off. We all kept on climbing up the hill and finally reached the top of the hill and saw thousands and thousand of people, Thais and foreigners on both side of the road. My girlfriend and I were unsure what the plan was for us as the staff spoke very little English and couldn’t communicate with us as to what the end goal for us was. Eventually they managed to hail a pickup truck and we quickly scramble to the back, which was filled with engineering equipment, but at this stage know one cared all they wanted was to get to the other side (East).

]