Tital wave hit's phuket

[geezer]

Watching CNN (bored at work) and it's just come up that a tital wave has hit Phuket due to an earthquake of Indonesia. Just heard 10,000 to be evacuated, this is no Joke, hope all the girls and guys out there are OK. If your planning a trip there better check your hotel is still there.

[Guest]

Thai Visa have some pics and updates on this.

Hope we haven't lost anyone significant (Mickey) out there!

[Guest]

Man that sucks hope everything is ok there. Any pics would be great. Mickey update us on how you and Poo are.

[Snick]

Just spoke to a ladyboy friend therre, its pretty bad. Farang tourists are being asked to leave, they are worried about aftershocks, and Soi Bangla is in bad shape with many cars having been carried by the wave into the bars.

The only good news, "No Katoey were killed, they were all asleep at 8am".

[Guest]

Well I guess it must be bad if a ladyboy would say this as this can only hurt her business and stop other farangs from coming.

I really hope not too many people are hurt but as I am supposed to be in patong beach on Wednesday I need to re-evaluate and determine if I should still go. Maybe just stay in BKK and Pattaya.

[Guest]

doubtfull you would be allowed to enter phuket

[wisetraveller]

Ozzie, a 10 metre wave went half a kilometre inland. I think you need to reassess.

[mlay]

Picture from Soi katoye in Patong...

[Guest]

wow...this is a damned shame....a friend of mine just called and told me about this and I put on the news and couldn't believe that shit. Phuket may take a while to recover from this, Karon and Kata also and all the beaches that face the west coast.

Betcha Phi Phi island didn't fare too well from all this either; 30 foot waves would pretty much wipe that place out

[Guest]

Saw this one in the news, They say the death toll is about 6000 in 6 surrounding countries.

[Guest]

Updated: 09:33 AM EST
Massive Quake, Tsunami Hit South Asia
Thousands Feared Dead as Tidal Waves Slam Coasts



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AKARTA, Indonesia (Dec. 26) - The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that slammed into villages and seaside resorts across Asia on Sunday, killing more than 5,600 people in six countries.

Tourists, fishermen, homes and cars were swept away by walls of water up to 20 feet high that swept across the Bay of Bengal, unleashed by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake centered off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.





In Sri Lanka, 1,000 miles west of the epicenter, more than 2,425 people were killed, the prime minister's office said. At least 1,870 died in Indonesia, and 1,130 along the southern coasts of India. At least 198 were confirmed dead in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia and 2 in Bangladesh.

But officials expected the death toll to rise dramatically, with hundreds reported missing and all communications cut off to Sumatran towns closest to the epicenter. Hundreds of bodies were found on various beaches along India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, and more were expected to be washed in by the sea, officials said.

The rush of waves brought to sudden disaster to people carrying out their daily activities on the ocean's edge: Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away; a group of 32 Indians - including 15 children - were killed while taking a ritual Hindu bath to mark the full moon day; fishing boats, with their owners clinging to their sides, were picked up by the waves and tossed away.


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"All the planet is vibrating" from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 8.9. Geophysicist Julie Martinez said it was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.

On Sumatra, the quake destroyed dozens of buildings - but as elsewhere, it was the wall of water that followed that caused the most deaths and devastation.

Tidal waves leveled towns in the province of Aceh on Sumatra's northern tip, the region closest to the epicenter. An Associated Press reporter saw bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded. More bodies littered the beaches.

Health ministry official Els Mangundap said 1,876 people had died across the region, including some 1,400 in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Communications to the town had been cut.

Relatives went through lines of bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets, searching for dead loved ones. Aceh province has long been the center of a violent insurgency against the government.

The worst known death toll so far was in Sri Lanka, where a million people were displaced from wrecked villages. Some 20,000 soldiers were deployed in relief and rescue and to help police maintain law and order. Military spokesman Brig. Daya Ratnayake said 2,425 people were dead in areas under government control.

"It is a huge tragedy," said Lalith Weerathunga, secretary to the Sri Lankan prime minister. "The death toll is going up all the time." He said the government did not know what was happening in areas of the northeast controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels.

An AP photographer saw two dozen bodies along a four-mile stretch of beach, some of children entangled in the wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. Other bodies were brought up from the beach, wrapped in sarongs and laid on the road, while rows of men and women lined the roads asking if anyone had seen their relatives.

Around one million people were displaced from their homes, Weerathunga said.

In India, beaches were turned into virtual open-air mortuaries, with bodies of people caught in the tidal wave being washed ashore. Some 800 deaths were reported in Tamil Nadu state, Home Minister Shivraj Patil said. In Andhra Pradesh state, 200 were reported; 102 were killed in Pondicherry.

"I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flying on the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if made of paper," said P. Ramanamurthy, 40, who lives in Andra Pradesh's Kakinada town. "I had never imagined anything like this could happen."

The huge waves struck around breakfast time on the beaches of Thailand's beach resorts - probably Asia's most popular holiday destination at this time of year, particularly for Europeans fleeing the winter cold - wiping out bungalows, boats and cars, sweeping away sunbathers and snorkelers, witnesses said.

"Initially we just heard a bang, a really loud bang," Gerrard Donnelly of Britain, a guest at Phuket island's Holiday Inn, told Britain's Sky News. "We initially thought it was a terrorist attack, then the wave came and we just kept running upstairs to get on as high ground as we could."

"People that were snorkeling were dragged along the coral and washed up on the beach, and people that were sunbathing got washed into the sea," said Simon Clark, 29, a photographer from London vacationing on Ngai island.

In the Andaman Sea on Phi Phi island - where "The Beach" starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed - 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea.

"I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea and also my staff," said Chan Marongtaechar, owner of the PP Princess Resort and PP Charlie Beach Resort.

Indonesia, a country of 17,000 islands, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the margins of tectonic plates that make up the so-called the "Ring of Fire" around the Pacific Ocean basin.

The Indonesian quake struck just three days after an 8.1 quake struck the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica, causing buildings to shake hundreds of miles away but no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude 8 are very rare. A quake registering magnitude 8 rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that stuck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.

Associated Press reporters Dilip Ganguly and Gemunu Amarasinghe in Colombo, Sri Lanka, K.N. Arun in Madras, India, and Sutin Wannabovorn in Phuket, Thailand, contributed to this report.


12/26/04 09:19 EST

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[Guest]

Quote from some people on Phi Phi, which is probably pretty much destroyet by now;

In the Andaman Sea on Phi Phi island where "The Beach" starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea.

"I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea and also my staff," said Chan Marongtaechar, owner of the PP Princess Resort and PP Charlie Beach Resort.

Picture below of some tourists on Kata beach

[stogie bear]

If anyone is unsure of the Geography then this may help...

[stogie bear]

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Up to his chest in raging water, Boree Carlsson clung desperately to a pillar in a hotel lobby as a giant tsunami wave pounded Thailand's Phuket island Sunday.

"I just couldn't believe what was happening before my eyes," said Carlsson, a 45-year-old Swede who had rushed into a hotel as the waves rolled into Patong Beach.

The giant wave flooded the hotel lobby in a matter of seconds and dragged furniture onto the street.

Carlsson had to wrap himself around a pillar to avoid being swept away.

"As I was standing there, a car actually floated into the lobby and overturned because the current was so strong," said Carlsson, who works at another beachside hotel.

"The water was up to my chest and I was holding onto my friend's hand because he can't swim." The giant waves triggered by an earthquake under the Indian Ocean tossed cars around like toys and swept into luxury hotels on Phuket, a tourist magnet in Thailand's southern holiday playground, killing at least 120 people, officials said.

The hardest hit areas included Phuket's main resort beaches of Patong, Karon and Laguna where hotels were packed with Western and Asian tourists at the height of the year-end holiday season.

Minutes after the first wave hit, Carlsson said he heard people screaming that the beach had disappeared.

"When I got close to the beach I heard more screaming and suddenly I saw this huge wave, taller than the palm trees, coming to crash down on us. It was unbelievable."

"THE BEACH" ISLAND FLATTENED On Phi Phi island, about 25 miles from Phuket, Christian Patauraux said he saw many dead and injured after huge waves "flattened" the tiny island featured in Leonardo DiCaprio's 2000 film "The Beach."

"I am OK. Many dead people everywhere. I cannot call because the network is saturated," the Belgian tourist said in a text message to his anxious girlfriend in Singapore.

As JaiDee suspected the tiny island of Phi Phi is a memory now!

[Blue Ballz]

Yeah Pi Pi got hammered form all reports. Thanks for posting that pic of Soi Katoey. While it looked bad, I was actually expecting it to be worse. For sure they will clean up and reload. I am confident that Phuket will return to its former glory. I just hope that the loss of life has been minimal and, of course, no one we know got caught up in the mess and destruction. Now more than ever-BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!