However, there were signs, but no one deciphered them. None of the people – all the animals knew in advance what was what... And they managed to get away in time – in connection with which I propose to equip all hotel rooms with at least cats in the future. And on the doors of the rooms, next to the evacuation plan, instructions should be hung in all languages: “If your cat begins to behave inappropriately, if the animal shows anxiety and a strong desire to leave the room, do not contradict it. Quickly gather money, documents, valuables – and run wherever your eyes look!”
Because those residents of Phuket who obeyed their animals remained intact. The mahouts ran after the rebellious elephants, the sea gypsies, a tribe that lives on the water, followed the dogs fleeing into the mountains... And they all remained safe and sound. Which cannot be said about thousands of others.
School knowledge could also have helped – one English girl, just before her trip to Phuket, was writing a report about tsunamis. Apparently, she turned out to be the only one who did not start admiring the water that had disappeared to who knows where – the girl instantly realized what was what and began to drive people off the beach. Imagine – some stupid school report saved about a hundred lives.
But there was only one such girl. Not everyone had elephants with dogs either. So we, people unfamiliar with such a natural phenomenon as an earthquake and tsunami, had no one to tell us what to do, what to do and where to go.
The tremors of the Sumatra earthquake that reached Phuket at first left me relatively indifferent. Because it was at an ungodly early hour for a resort – eight in the morning. I, of course, woke up – to catch the bed jumping out from under me. And having caught it and clung to it more tightly, I fell asleep again – serenely and fearlessly.
And maybe that's for the best. After all, if the earthquake had knocked me out of sleep completely, I don't rule out that I would have gone to the beach. And there, having discovered the absence of the ocean, I would have gone for a walk along its former bottom – as hundreds of early-rising locals and guests of Phuket Island did. And when the ocean began to return, I would certainly, like the aforementioned hundreds, have sat down to watch such a natural phenomenon. And when I finally realized that things were bad, it would have been too late. As it was too late for hundreds of people who remained on the beach until the very last...
An hour later they were driving them past me. I was standing on some nameless mountain, where the sleepy inhabitants of my flooded hotel had been urgently taken – and dozens of pickup trucks rushed past, in the beds of which lay the wounded, covered with blood-soaked sheets, and the dead, covered with the same sheets or towels, but already with their heads.
Horror, panic and anguish – I understood for the first time what 'mortal anguish' means. It's not when you're doing something incredibly boring – no, it's when you can't do anything at all. And what can you, a human speck, do when you stand on a pathetic hill or sit on the roof of a bungalow, and the water keeps approaching, carrying past you giant uprooted trees and heavy cars? Such a nice, warm Indian Ocean, such soft sand, a former idyll – where is all this?
Everything is in place. Having swept everything away, the ocean returned to its shores and again pretended to be a nice pool with real sea water. But now no one believes it – there is no urge to swim. Especially since a whole flotilla is combing the water along the coast: police, military, and simply fishing boats are pulling out more and more new victims from the again nice ocean. Those who carelessly admired the water – and were carried away and destroyed. Those who lived in good and expensive bungalows (too good, too expensive, that is, right on the shore) – the water locked them in their rooms, and then, breaking out doors and even entire walls, also took them to itself...
But all this was clear only the next day. And that day was a day of running away, when we had to climb higher and higher. And then it became a day of waiting – when the survivors were gathered at evacuation points, given mattresses, water and food, and told to sit and wait. Because there was a danger of a new wave.
We sat and waited. And a man with a megaphone came every five minutes and asked: is there among us such-and-such, who lived in such-and-such hotel? His relatives or friends are looking for him, who are now sitting at another evacuation point.
Sometimes the person being sought responded. But more often no one responded.
Very few were fully dressed – most were in what they were pulled out of the water in, that is, swimming suits or trunks. Few were completely intact – most were covered in bruises and serious scratches, which were immediately smeared with some medical stuff (those who suffered worse were taken to hospitals). At that moment, more than anything in the world, everyone wanted to call home – because at home they had already watched the news on TV, and now they were probably all in hysterics. But most of the cell phones had drowned, or simply got wet and stopped working, or they had run out of battery, or they had run out of money. And when we managed to assemble one working phone from several non-functioning ones, it turned out that the network was overloaded and impossible to get through. As a result, we began sending SMS messages, as short and reassuring as possible. For example, like this: “We are fine – there is a tsunami here, but we are alive.”
I must say, in Moscow these messages were at first taken for stupid jokes. Because of the time difference, it was so early at home that no one had time to watch TV yet. And the TV itself didn't really know anything yet – there was just a report, by the way, that an earthquake had occurred in Southeast Asia. So it was possible not to be too nervous about the non-working phones.
And while we were trying to call home, some people had other things on their minds. They, seemingly the same refugees, stood in a small group apart from everyone else – those who had lost someone. They still had hope that the lost would be found, that it wasn't forever. Their losses were now being searched for at other evacuation points and hospitals. One man is overjoyed – his wife has been found, she is alive and well, sitting on a neighboring hill! And he steps away from his group of the despairing and immediately merges with us. But the others all stand there, and it becomes harder and harder for them to hold back tears, and then the first woman breaks down – it seems the water tore a child from her arms. After her, a second, a third begin to cry... They are comforted as best they can.
And so we sat and waited, and then suddenly we were told – that's it, there is no more danger. We can go. The only question is where? The hotels no longer exist.
However, I was lucky – my small, three-star, modest and utterly charming hotel survived. Covered in mud, without electricity – it stood proudly among the surrounding ruins, because besides the hotel, nothing else in the town had survived. We were given candles – and, dripping paraffin on everything, we packed our things and went to spend the night in a safe place, in a tiny hotel in the city of Phuket, the capital of the island. Thanks to the hotel owner – he took care of us. Others, not as lucky as we were, spent the night on mattresses in supermarkets.
And in the morning we returned to our resilient hotel, which turned out to be exactly the same as before. It was washed, cleaned, and tidied, electricity was restored, air conditioners were turned on, and everything seemed the same as before – if you didn't leave the room. But beyond the hotel's threshold, a completely different, new reality opened up.
The seaside restaurants, which had fed us with amazing works of Thai cuisine, disappeared without a trace. The more solid bungalows partially survived – true, many had only two of four walls remaining, the water had carried beds onto roofs, the water had even knocked out safes and bathtubs. The water brought fishing boats and minivans into what had once been luxury rooms. On what used to be a veranda sat a Belgian woman wrapped in a towel and, nervously laughing, drank gin from the bottle – the bottle of gin turned out to be the only thing that survived in her bungalow. And she had nothing left.
I had three more days to live on Phuket. The thought of leaving early came – and immediately went away: the airports were being stormed by those who truly had nowhere to live, and I was not the one to compete with them.
In short, the next day Western tourists were blown away like the wind. But Russian tourists increased significantly – planes with rescuers from Scandinavia and charters with our tourists intending to celebrate the New Year here began arriving at the just-cleaned runways of the flooded airport.
Of course, our tourists expressed dissatisfaction – the wrong hotel, the wrong beach, can't swim, nowhere to have fun, can't get a taxi, this isn't a vacation, but some kind of crap. I was flying away – but how did they celebrate the New Year there? Well, I don't know. Maybe they went to the flooded city of Patong, which before the tsunami had been the local center of entertainment and shopping. Yes, the first three lines of this city are destroyed – but life continued on the remaining ones.
Restaurants, bars, shops, loud music and bright lights – it seemed everything was as before. If not for the thick dust from destroyed buildings hanging in the air. And not the terrible smell of something wet and rotting. And not the fact that, as soon as you leave the bar and turn the corner, you immediately come across dark ruins, among which people are rummaging... Sad and scary. And not suitable for the New Year – except for one where everyone gloomily drinks themselves to death, repeating to each other truisms about life going on and that we are still alive.
And then Putin spoke in Moscow and advised Russians to stop going to Phuket. The Russians obeyed – so my plane did not come for me. So I had to return a day later, and also by a roundabout route – instead of a simple flight Phuket – Moscow, I was offered first Phuket – Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Pattaya, and from there to Moscow.
I agreed, and as a result got every chance to stay in Bangkok. Because the airline did not want to take some dubious refugees onto the plane without confirmation from Moscow of our right to return home. And this despite the fact that there were plenty of seats on the plane – on December 30 few people were returning home. However, that is no reason to so easily carry some half-drowned tsunami victims to their homeland.
But in the end, they let us fly. True, first having us sign a receipt stating that we do not claim the luxurious in-flight meal. However, there was also plenty of food on the plane, so the stewardesses fed us.
On the day of my departure I went to the beach – not to swim, but just to say goodbye. It was still surrounded by vessels fishing the remains of the drowned out of the water. The ocean had already pretended to be innocent, and volunteers were wading through the water, pulling all sorts of rubbish from the bottom. Ordinary tourists and just Thais dragged logs, pieces of iron, and fragments out of the water: they put the surviving stuff into separate piles – cups, ashtrays that had miraculously survived the flood. Maybe later the former owners will find all this – and maybe it will still be useful to them?
Sad, but not hopeless. The Thais set about restoring everything with such enthusiasm that it is simply incredible – in a month or two, nothing here will remind of the recent disaster. So soon it will be possible to return here. If one can manage to stop fearing the ocean.
Olga VOLKOVA,
special correspondent of the newspaper «Inostranets».