BC-Quake-Survivors,0666

Families, friends reunite after tsunami, search for loved ones among dead

AP Photos

By ALISA TANG

Associated Press Writer

PHUKET, Thailand (AP) – A large billboard of Thailand’s king, split into pieces, lay in a heap Monday, facing the destruction on this beach in the aftermath of the earthquake-induced tidal wave that turned the area’s bar-lined beach into a pile of broken sticks.

Families and friends, separated by the waves, had tearful reunions after a day of fear that their loved ones had been swept away on this normally idyllic island and international resort.

Katri Seppanen, 27, of Helsinki, Finland, walked around barefoot, in her salt water-stained T-shirt and skirt, at the Patong Hospital waiting room where she spent the night with her mother and sister. She had a bandaged cut on her leg.

“The water went back, back, back, so far away, and everyone wondered what it was – a full moon or what? Then we saw the wave come, and we ran,” said a tearful Seppanen, who was on island’s popular Patong beach with her family. The wave washed over their heads and separated them, and they found each other two hours later.

Julie Robertson, 34, of Brisbane, Australia, found her mother, sister and friend Monday morning and screamed in relief upon seeing them at the Amari Hotel on Patong beach. “I’m upset, but I’m happy,” said Robertson.

Fifty-eight half-naked and swimming suit-clad corpses lay in rows outside the Patong Hospital emergency room. Three babies under the age of one were among the victims. A photo of one baby was posted on the wall of victims, the little corpse in a nearby refrigerator.

A monk collecting alms, curious foreign tourists and onlookers walked among the debris on the beach, where one car was stacked on top of another, and upended beach chairs lined the roads and storefronts for a few hundred yards inland. Among the first items set upright were toppled Buddhist statues.

Greg Miller, 55, of Honolulu, Hawaii, said when he felt the earthquake from his beachfront guesthouse room, he knew from experience at home to immediately look at the ocean for signs of what was to come.

“I finally got a car and managed to get into the hills. I called my friend and warned him not to come, but he drove down here anyway. His car was swept up by the water into the hills, flipping over four times on the way,” Miller said of his friend who survived.

Tinsel holiday garlands swung from wrecked bars and stores. There were “Merry Christmas” signs on the walls that remained standing, and on one beach front steak house, a festive foil banner read only “Happy New” with the third word dangling loosely from the awning.

There was no looting seen as police blocked off some streets from pedestrians and cars but many shopkeepers spent the night in their stores just in case.

John Krueger, 34, of Winter Park, Colo., described being inside his bungalow Sunday on Khao Luk Beach, north of Phuket, with his wife, Romina Canton, 26, of Rosario, Argentina, when the water filled it and blew it apart.

“The water rushed under the bungalow, brought our floor up and raised us to the ceiling. The water blew out our doors, our windows and the back concrete wall. My wife was swept away with the wall, and I had to bust my way through the roof,” Krueger said while waiting to talk to a U.S. Embassy official at Phuket City Hall.

He said he was sucked 8-10 feet under the water, and his wife was dragged out into the ocean for more than an hour until a wave brought her back to land again. He nearly tore his little finger in half when breaking through the roof, and his wife broke her nose, her foot and suffered scratches all over her body.

“It was like white water rafting. … She was naked on the beach because she had just gotten out of the shower. It was like being in a washing machine,” Krueger said.

AP-ES-12-26-04 2259EST