NZ man: I thought, ‘This is it'

New Zealander Shaun Hickey was pounded against walls then clung to a tennis court roof when the tsunami struck on Phuket Island.

His partner thought it was a terrorist attack, but when the couple heard a loud roar and saw the surging waters, they ran for their lives.

Mr Hickey, 38, and his Australian partner Emma Dini, 33, who live in Auckland, were having breakfast at the luxurious Merlin Beach Resort on Phuket Island's Patong district in Thailand when the tsunami struck at 10am on Boxing Day.

Mr Hickey said: "We ran out through the kitchen to the back, away from the water, but we should have gone up.

"There was a truck out the back that we tried to get on, but the water picked it up. I thought, 'This is it. I am going to drown.' I was under water and it kept pounding me against these walls ...

"I think two waves coming in opposite directions threw me back to the surface. There was a woman on a table who pulled me up to her."

Ms Dini grabbed on to a pole and climbed the resort's tennis court fence and held on.

She saw Mr Hickey in the water and pulled him up on to the court's fragile roof. It gave way and she partly fell through, cutting a leg.

The two then pulled anyone they could reach from the surging water.

"It must have been adrenalin; it is amazing what people were doing," Mr Hickey said.

Two more five- to six-metre waves struck before the water eased and the couple ran for an escarpment behind the hotel, clambering as high as they could and waiting there for hours, fearing more tidal waves.

When they returned, Ms Dini said, they found "refrigerators in the swimming pool, cars upside down, on their noses. And then, in the lobby on the second floor, the Christmas tree was still standing".

Mr Hickey told his story from Phuket hospital, where, said the hospital's website, five New Zealanders were treated.

They were named as Edward Bishop, Emma Pini, Shaun Hickey, Susannah and Vanessa Martin and James Fox.

Jeremaiah Boyack of Wellington, who broke his leg when he was swept away by the tsunami on Cherai Beach in India, was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Mumbai. It was still unknown last night if he would have to have his foot amputated.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff said the possibility of more New Zealand casualties could not be ruled out.

The scale of the disaster meant there might be casualties that New Zealand authorities in the affected areas did not know about.

Mr Goff said ministry staff in Thailand were checking hospitals and morgues.

"They're trying to make sure that any of those that are deceased are not New Zealanders or if they are New Zealanders to identify them."

Seventy per cent of the inquiries to the ministry were about New Zealanders in Thailand.

He hoped travellers would think to contact family or friends at home.

The ministry last night urged concerned people in New Zealand to call the Red Cross hotline - 0800 733 276.

The Red Cross had taken over responsibility for calltaking, leaving ministry staff free to follow up reports of New Zealanders in Asia.