TSUNAMI IMPACT: Tourists Return to Thai Coasts, in Remembrance

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

KHAO LAK, Thailand , Dec 27 2005 (IPS) - Antonio Da Mata Coelho was among the hundreds of foreigners who flew into southern Thailand over the weekend to be part of a pilgrimage to mark a year since last December’s Asian tsunami.

It was the first journey back for the 26-year-old native of Portugal after a miraculous escape from the monster waves that flattened the beautiful coastlines of Thailand on that fateful Dec. 26 morning. Sucked away by the advancing waters, he blacked out..

‘’I thought it was a nightmare and then realised it was real,” he said of his near brush with death while out swimming with his girl friend close to the Phi Phi Islands. ‘’I did not know where I was when I gained consciousness and so I started screaming..”

Other foreigners who gathered in Khao Lak, the worst affected strip of Thailand’s Andaman coastline, had similar stories of remembrance and reflection to share.

Australian Joy Vogel was one of them. The 62-year-old from Mullumbimby in the state of New South Wales walked along the beaches of Khao Lak to remember the daughter and son-in-law she lost to the tsunami. They were among the thousands of tourists who died in that unprecedented natural disaster.

The last time Vogel talked to her 32-year-old daughter, Moi, was on Christmas day, when she had called home from Khao Lak to break the news that she was pregnant. Moi and her 34-year-old husband, Christian Knott, had got married in October.

‘’You look at the other people crying and feel we are one of the tsunami tribe on this planet,” says Vogel, who was on her third trip to this part of Thailand since she lost Moi and Christian. ‘’I hate using the word dead. I prefer saying she left her body.”

Over 8,000 people died or are missing from the tsunami that struck six provinces in southern Thailand, with an estimated half of that number being tourists. Foreigners from 38 countries died in Thailand when the tsunami struck its string of holiday resorts on the beach.

Phang Nga province, where Khao Lak is located, alone counted 5,880 deaths.

In all, over 220,000 people died in 12 countries that were ravaged by the Indian Ocean tsunami. Indonesia’s northern Aceh province suffered the most, with over 200,000 deaths, followed by Sri Lanka, where some 35,000 people died, southern India, where the death toll stands at close to 18,000 and in the Maldives where there were 108 deaths.

Other affected countries that witnessed death and destruction to property were Malaysia, Burma and the East African nations of Kenya, Madagascar, Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania.

The tsunami remembrance events organised by the Thai authorities were spread over four days, beginning Saturday.

On Monday morning, to coincide with the exact moment the waves crashed inland, there were brief memorial services at four points on the beach. A calm sea and clear tropical light provided a backdrop of contrasts to family members from Thailand and abroad assembled to remember their relatives who became victims of a sea in a different mood.

And in the late afternoon, a pageant with Buddhists chants, poetry reading and saxophone music was held along a cove in Khao Lak to lay the foundation stone for a tsunami memorial.

‘’It is hoped that the memorial will serve as a learning centre concerning this natural disaster as well as a monument that will forever stand in remembrance of all those who lost their lives in last year’s tragedy,” Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told the gathered crowd of grieving family members, officials and diplomats.

Memorial services were also held by nationals of different countries to remember lost relatives in keeping with their own traditions, such as those from Australia, Britain, Finland and Sweden.

The Australians remembered their 23 nationals who died with a brief prayer service under an early morning light on Patong beach on the resort island of Phuket. The event ended with purple orchids and white frangipani flowers floated into the quiet Andaman sea. Some relatives held each other, weeping silently and staring at the waves.

Swedish nationals held a similar event in the afternoon on the beach in Khao Lak to remember 543 dead compatriots. It included a prayer, poetry reading and the release into the sea of little floats made out of flowers and candles.

‘’The families wanted to be by themselves to grieve and mourn,” Susanna Soderstrom, spokesperson for the Swedish Red Cross, told IPS. ‘’Some of them have only recently dared to make the decision to come to Thailand. It was a difficult journey for them to make. Some were meeting for the first time since the tragedy.”