Asian Tsunami | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> There Can't Be a Word for This

Q&A: Climbing El Capitan with Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Ivo Ninov listen
Q&A: Maggie Anthony On Son Eric Volz listen
Q&A: Photographer Danny Clinch listen
Q&A: "Coca Is It!" Author Joshua Hammer listen
Q&A: "Strange Bird" Author Carl Hoffman listen
Out of Bounds: That '70s Guy listen

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Why do mosquito bites itch? answer
Are elite athletes just lucky genetic mutants? answer
Can women really tolerate cold water better than men? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine, March 2005

Page:

There Can't Be a Word for This
The catastrophic Christmas tsunami hit Thailand's climbing meccas hard. Railae Beach resident SAM LIGHTNER JR. reports on the nightmares and miracles of the aftermath—and on the Thais and expats rebuilding their slice of paradise.

By Sam Lightner Jr.

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS is the very peak of the peak season at the world-famous beaches along Thailand's southwest coast, and Phi Phi Town—the dense village of dive operators, coffeehouses, hotels, bootleg-DVD vendors, and climbing shops on the island of Koh Phi Phi—was packed. Lying roughly 28 miles southeast of the resort-filled island of Phuket in the Andaman Sea, Koh Phi Phi was bustling with as many as 4,000 visitors and locals.

Phi Phi Town sits more or less at sea level, a jumble of wooden shops, bamboo shacks, and brick bungalows crowded on a thin isthmus of sand that separates Dalam Bay, to the north, and Tonsai Bay, the island's main entry, to the south. Any view of the ocean itself is cut off by two massifs of 300-million-year-old limestone jutting nearly a thousand feet out of the sea. And so, at a little after ten that morning, as beachgoers and climbers sat drinking coffee and eating pastries or putting on their first coat of sunblock, no one could see the massive swell approaching from the west.

Koh Phi Phi is surrounded by deep water—in places the depth off the western side is 100 feet just three feet from shore—so the tsunami was almost on top of the island when it bounced off the shelf, creating a wave that rose as high as 60 feet. The water could have been moving close to 50 miles per hour when it crashed into the 11-square-mile, hourglass-shaped island's rugged west coast. There, the wave split in two, sweeping toward the town through both Dalam and Tonsai bays.

The water hit the Tonsai side first, then plowed in as a larger wave from Dalam Bay, crashing across the beach in front of P. P. Charlie's and the other bungalow resorts and creating a Cuisinart of shattered windows, corrugated-tin roofs, scuba tanks, and people. Nothing in its path could stop it, and the water surged on, washing across one of the most crowded stretches of waterfront in Thailand and rolling toward the mainland.

Page:

Climber SAM LIGHTNER JR. is the author of All Elevations Unknown: An Adventure in the Heart of Borneo.

• Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

• Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

• Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.

TODAY'S NEWS UPDATE!
iPhone Fitness Apps
As the hand-held age meets the ever-increasing need to track, log, share, and pace workouts, it's logical that ...