Tsunami Animation


Comparative imagery overview of Kalutara area pre- and post-tsunami on the Southwestern Coast of Sri Lanka.
(Image source: DigitalGlobe)

Indian Ocean Tsunami
Tsunami Background


Diver saw tsunami forming underwater

By Akiko Tada - The Star, 29th December 2004
IT HAD been another calm morning with the promise of great weather when we set off for a dawn dive from Gapang on Pulau Weh, an island renowned for its dive sites to the north-west of Aceh.

By 7am the four of us ? two British guys, a French girl and I ? were underwater with hopes of catching another great view of sea-life in the clear waters just like we had the day before.

Unknown to us, the tectonic plates of the seabed were crashing just off Sumatra, the epicentre of a cataclysmic underwater earthquake that caused tsunamis across South Asia killing tens of thousands on Sunday.

We heard a disturbing noise like the rumbling of the engine of a big ship and it went on for a while. It was towards the end of the dive so we were about 5m to 10m underwater and we looked at each other because it was unusual to hear big ships around here and then I realised that this might be an underwater earthquake.

The current was also a little bit stronger than usual but what was really unusual this time was that the fish, even the big ones, were hiding inside the corals, while the moray eels which usually hide were all rushing out from their holes.

On our way back to Gapang, we realised that something was amiss.

All of use looked at the surface of the sea and commented that it looked very strange ? because there was one part which was completely calm, there was no movement at all, it was like a mirror.

Then another part had whirling currents ? it looked like a washing machine, while yet another part had cross-currents.

As we were coming up to Gapang we could see that all the beachfront cottages had been smashed to bits. From the boat we saw huge waves gathering height and smashing against the beach, bludgeoning buildings and sending bits flying onto trees and into the ocean.

We found later rabbit fish in the bathroom on the second floor of the dive shop!

We didn?t feel anything on the boat, well just the usual rocking but we waited almost an hour until the waves calmed and then came ashore to find Gapang beach swept away by the tsunami. However no one on Gapang was injured.

Most of the tourists and locals know that when the tide recedes as far back as 2m, there was going to be a big wave and everyone would run uphill where the resorts were.

As far as I know a Malaysian couple, whose names I only remember as Han and Angie from Kuala Lumpur, and another couple, Agnes and Hamid from Perhentian Island, were safe.

There were aftershocks the whole of Sunday night and we could tell when the next one was going to happen as the dogs would start barking just before the aftershock. It felt like tiny volcano eruptions but one of the Japanese dive instructors said that these tremors and even the big one that had caused the tsunami was by Japanese standards not really that bad.

On Monday, six of us decided to get a fishing boat from the ferry jetty to catch our flights from Banda Aceh, little knowing about the devastation in the capital city of Aceh.

We saw the extent of the damage in Banda Aceh ? there was a lot of stuff floating all over the place ? pigs, refrigerators and lots of dead bodies. The city was covered with mud, buildings were torn down and there were lots more dead bodies lying on the ground ? they were rotting.

We saw the military police digging a big hole, probably to bury the dead, and we walked through the rubble and headed for the airport.

Luckily, the airport was still open and our 2pm flight to Medan was still on the tarmac even though it was already after 5pm.

It was only when I got back to Singapore that I realised how narrow an escape we had all had.


Akiko Tada is a secretary who is also an avid diver and was in Pulau Weh at the time of the earthquake on Sunday. She is now safe and back in Singapore where she works for a Japanese multinational.