This week's hot topic is about Devastating Disasters. The 2004 Indian
Ocean earthquake occurred at 00:58:53 Coordinated Universal Time on 26 December
located at the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The photo above illustrates Aceh
in Indonesia, the most devastated region of all.
This tragedy is
mostly known as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. According to the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) the earthquake that triggered the great Indian Ocean
tsunami of 2004 was estimated to have released the energy of 23,000
Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. The cause for this were giant forces that had been
building up deep in the Earth for hundreds of years. These forces were finally
released on December 26 by shaking the ground violently and setting free a
series of lethal waves that traveled across the Indian Ocean at the incredible
speed of a jet airliner.
The undersea earthquake was caused when the
Indian Plate was subducted by the Burma Plate and started a series of
devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most coasts bordering the Indian
Ocean, killing 230,000 people in 14 countries, and causing the inundation of dozens
of coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 ft.) high. This was
surely one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. This was
proved by the fact that the rupture was more than 600 miles long which caused
the display of the sea bottom by not only 10 yards horizontally but also several
yards vertically. Consequently, trillions of tons of rock moved, unleashing the
largest magnitude earthquake that occurred in 40 years. The devastating
aftermath left Indonesia the most hardest-hit country, followed by Sri Lanka,
India, and Thailand.
Inside this catastrophe a seemingly impossible story
happens: Miracle survival of family who inspired new tsunami movie
It is true that
apart from victims the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami also had survivors. Some of
them was a family that was separated by the tsunami and in the end fortunately
was reunited. This amazing story became a movie at 2012. The movie’s title is: The Impossible
Seconds before their sudden separations the
mother Maria was on a lounger at
the Orchid Resort Hotel in Thailand while her boys, Lucas 10, Tomas 8, and
Simon 5, were playing by the pool with their father. The mother saw in terror that
her husband Quique Alvarez and their two youngest boys were taken away by a torrent
that carried with it not only cars but even the chalet that the family had been
staying in.
“We couldn’t see the wave,” says Maria Belon the mother. “We
started to hear a very horrible sound. I was looking around thinking maybe this
is just in my mind. No one recognized the sound. It felt like the Earth was
coming apart but everything looked perfect. I was facing the sea and saw a huge
black wall. I didn’t think it was the sea. I thought it was a black wall coming
to get us. The two youngest boys were in the swimming pool with my husband. I
screamed to my husband and to the kids. I thought it was the end for all of us.
Lucas was crying out, ‘Mama, Mama’. Then they all disappeared under water. I
went through a lot of very difficult moments under the water – shock, and fear
about the boys. I remember being pushed against walls. You could feel them
trembling and breaking. I was not in physical pain but the drowning sensation
was like being in a spin dryer. The doctors said I was under water for over
three minutes because my lungs were full of water. When I came to the surface I
wrapped myself around a tree and clung on. It was so hard to work out what
things were because nothing looked normal.” Maria had a deep wound to her chest
and a terribly painful wound on her right thigh. But through her panic she saw
something that made her feel relieved. Maria says: “About 15 meters away I could see a little head,
and I thought ‘My goodness, I think it’s Lucas’. After that I heard him
screaming for me so I went to get him In that moment it felt like the most
blessed vision I have ever had. You forget about yourself completely. You just
think about saving them. I swam across the current and grabbed him. We held on
to a tree trunk. I was dying, I could feel it happening to me. When I was up
the tree, bleeding very heavily with very deep wounds, I could feel the dying
process. I had really bad internal bleeding as well as the external wounds.”
Children of Tsunami: No More Tears ~ a documentary produced
in the memory of the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami
Children of
Tsunami: No More Tears is a 24-minute documentary that describes the life of 8
children in 4 different Asian countries. The eight children featured in the
project were: Selvam (13) of Tamil Nadu, India, Mala (11) also of Tamil Nadu,
India, Putri (8) of Aceh, Indonesia, Yenni (15) also of Aceh, Indonesia,
Heshani (13) of Matara, Sri Lanka, Theeban (14) of Sri Lanka, Bao (16) of Phang
Nga, Thailand and Beam (8) of Phang Nga, Thailand. The documentary takes place at
the end of 2005, during the following year after the Indian Ocean tsunami
struck. It was first broadcasted Asia-wide by the Channel News Asia on 26
December 2005, the first anniversary of the Asian tsunami in the memory of all
victims.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment