<< From the corner of my vision I see a couple of big waves hit the beach to my left, maybe 10 or 20 meters away, coming in from the eastern end of Tangalle bay. Instantly Shantha (The owner of our guesthouse) and his kitchen boy are up, running out the front and screaming at everyone in the restaurant and the beach in front: “Run! Run!” Instinctively they know something is badly wrong. I’m guessing the exact time was around 9.25, but I can’t be sure.
Within seconds a series of huge, vicious, screaming and roaring breakers are rising higher and higher from the beach and up into the restaurant and guesthouse, traveling at an incredible, unearthly speed. Everything from out the front is washed into the restaurant area; people, a motorbike, bins, bits of wood, water tanks all come flying in on the torrent. It is a scene so bizarre and unbelievable that it is almost impossible to describe. My brain could not process what was happening quickly enough….it just did not make sense.
By the time I have taken 4 or 5 strides back across the front area towards our room the waves are surging in at stomach level, already smashing everything in their path. Even though only seconds have elapsed, everyone realizes that this is a life and death situation, everyone is looking for an escape route. A couple of people have made it to up a set of concrete stairs leading to the first floor, others have disappeared, go knows where.
I stupidly try to get back into our ground floor room and hide behind a wall. Seconds later the next massive ton of malign surf smashes all the windows and the door, filling the room instantly and smashing the furniture like matchwood. I’m now up to my armpits in a deadly whirlpool of ocean, which seems determined to drag me under to my grave.
Panic is setting in now. My initial thoughts that this must be a freak tide related to the day’s full moon are gone, replace by a horrific fever of fear and an overpowering, desperate desire for self-survival.
What is this? What the fuck can it be? A tsunami…? The word flickers briefly through my mind, harking back to some half-watched documentary years ago. I realize that I need to look for Helen too, and I struggle against the water, back to the doorway at the front of our room. It is taking all my strength to stay upright, the intensity of the liquid is such that it seems to have octopus limbs that are wrapping themselves around me. >>
