Kept alive by floating coconuts

PORT KLANG - Survivor Rizal Sapura, who clung on for dear life, adrift in the Indian Ocean on an uprooted palm tree, has described how one by one scores of his family, friends and neighbours disappeared around him.

He had been cleaning the mosque in his home at Banda Aceh when the tsunami struck. Grabbing whatever he could to keep afloat, he was sucked 160 kilometres out to sea.

He survived for eight days on floating coconuts and rainwater. Sunburned and suffering cuts and bruises, he was rescued by a passing container ship, the Japanese-owned MV Durban Bridge, and taken to Malaysia's Port Klang, where yesterday he described his escape.

"At first, there were some friends with me ... After a few days, they were gone ... I saw bodies left and right," the 23-year-old said. "Everybody sank, my family members sank. There were bodies around me."

The first he knew of the tsunami was when children rushed in to the mosque to warn him. But the surging waves swept them out to sea before they could escape.

- INDEPENDENT