Tsunami stories: Beach 'angel' saves hundreds

A 10-year-old British schoolgirl saved the lives of hundreds of people in southern Asia by warning them a wall of water was about to strike after learning about tsunamis at school.

Tilly Smith, who has been renamed the "angel of the beach" by the Sun, was holidaying with her family on Phuket when she grasped what was happening and alerted her mother.

"I was on the beach and the water started to go funny. There were bubbles and the tide went out all of a sudden."

Her intuition was enough to raise the alert and prompt the evacuation of Phuket's Maikhao Beach and a neighbouring hotel before the water came crashing in, saving hundreds of people from death and injury.

Sea gypsies alert village

Knowledge of the ocean and its currents passed down from generation to generation of a group of Thai fishermen, known as the Morgan sea gypsies, saved an entire village from the Asian tsunami.

By the time killer waves crashed over southern Thailand the entire 181 population of their village had fled to the mountains of South Surin Island, the Nation reported.

"The elders told us that if the water recedes fast it will reappear in the same quantity in which it disappeared," 65-year-old village chief Sarmao Kathalay told the paper.

Mother rescues family

Pictures showing a mother dashing into the tidal waves off Thailand in a desperate bid to save her family were cabled out around the world last week. Their fate was unknown until yesterday when the Swedish mum reported they had all survived.

Karin Svaerd described in the daily Expressen her desperation as her three sons, brother and brother-in-law snorkelled in the water. Witnesses heard her scream: "Oh my God, not my children!".

"I was yelling at them to run, but they couldn't hear me.

"I got 150m out before they started to run. By then they'd also seen the wave."

The family got caught in the tsunami and was tossed around underwater. But one by one they managed to make it to higher ground.

Clinging to the wreckage

Nagappattinam fisherman G M Veerappan and three of his children survived the tsunami by clinging to the remnants of his demolished home - a pole stuck in the ground.

As the water roared around him, Veerappan clung on desperately. "There was no proper grip and I was slipping. After one hour I lost all strength and dropped the two younger kids. I cried and cried, thinking I had killed my children."

After a few hours, rescuers reached Veerappan, and pulled the father and his 6-year-old daughter to safety.

When Veerappan came ashore, rescuers told him they had also found his two younger sons, aged 4 and 2.

Long walk to safety

At 80 and with a career in the British colonial army and India's military behind him, Sheetla Prasad thought he was through with marches.

As Prasad was having tea with his wife, his tea cup began shaking - and the Asian tsunami sent him on a backbreaking trek for survival in India's remote Campbell Bay islands.

When he saw the sea roaring toward him, he shouted at his wife, two daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren to run uphill.

Within minutes, the waves had flattened his home, and he faced a stark choice - die there with his family or lead them through mountains covered in thick, dark foliage.

"I used my machete. I started hacking the bushes." For three days the family dragged themselves through the forest on blistered feet. On the third evening, they reached the docking site of a relief ship.

Boy watched mother die

After the waves swept him up, 10-year-old Ardiyansah in Banda Aceh found himself on top of a tree.

His tale of survival is also one of heartbreak.

"The last thing I saw was my mother drowning while crying out my name, and I didn't even see my little sister."

Ardiyansah spent two hours in the tree waiting for water to recede.

He then started searching for his father and after three days, they found each other.

Floating baby survives

When the waves hit, a baby girl's parents were flushed out of their restaurant on the beach of the Malaysian resort of Penang.

Tulasi, not yet a month old, was taking a nap when calamity struck.

She was found later safely floating on a mattress, when her parents swam back into the wrecked restaurant.

Surfing to safety

Mike Rigg, a British construction worker, was surfing in the Maldives when the tsunami hit.

"Suddenly there was a 2m-high surge in the waves and a very powerful current started rushing along the island," said Rigg, 33. "I was dragged along with it but I managed to stay out of the middle of the current."

Rigg was carried along for about 49m before he found the water was shallow enough for him to stand.

Dream of disaster

A premonition about floods led an Israeli couple living in an international community in southern India to build their house on stilts - a move that saved them from the tsunami.

When Yuval Skoles began building his beachside compound, his wife Hannah had dreams about floods, so he built the main house on stilts 5m above the ground.

- AGENCIES