Wimon Thongthae stood on his gently rocking longtail boat gazing at the cloudless sky, the cool December breeze blowing on his face.
"What a beautiful day," the wiry 48-year-old Ban Nam Khem villager thought to himself. He had fished the waters off the coast of Khao Lak in Phangnga since he was a boy, along with his four brothers.
Boxing Day 2004 had started like most others for Wimon. He had risen just before 4am, washed from a bucket and collected his net, fishing rod, some food and fuel for the boat for his day's work.
As he did every day, he kissed the cheeks of his sleeping daughters Frame, 8, and Film, 3, before walking out the door.
He and his brothers owned a fish farm, but still went out to sea before sunrise to catch prawns to earn extra money. They usually returned around lunchtime. But as he stood on his boat 5km offshore about 9am waiting for one of his brothers to arrive, he had no idea what was to come.
"The sea became calm as if I had sailed my boat onto a lake," Wimon recalled. "The wind just stopped blowing. As a fisherman, my instincts told me this was not just another day on the sea."
Suddenly, Wimon's thoughts were interrupted by what he thought was a loud explosion or crack of thunder out over the ocean. He worried a storm may be approaching and decided that when his brother arrived they would head back to shore. He had no communication system on his boat or even a mobile phone.
More troubling, after the "sonic boom" he looked down on the water and saw thousands of fish flopping on the surface. "There were fish floating everywhere around my boat," he said, adding he had never seen such a strange sight before.
- The Fisherman
- The Survivor
- The Rescue Pilot
- The Photographer
- The Searcher
- The Nurse
- The Body Collector
- The Animal Lovers
- The Returned
- The Benefactor
Fishermen on nearby boats were trying to scoop up as many as they could, but Wimon instructed his own crew, who had grabbed thatched baskets, not to.
"The fish were still alive but they looked like their ear drums had exploded from something really loud under the sea," Wimon said. "I was not sure what it was, but it wasn't right."
Half an hour after the loud boom, his brother arrived. Both men felt anxious and decided to return to shore. But it was too late.
Wimon thought it was "the end of the world".
"I heard a strange sound which I couldn't explain. I looked back and was shocked at what I saw."
He had seen large waves during the monsoon season, but nothing like the mountain of water bearing down on him.
Every other boat in the vicinity fired up their engines and headed to shore. But Wimon believed he could survive by doing the opposite.
"Turn around and face the wave!" he screamed at his brother.
Gunning his outboard motor to full throttle, Wimon slammed his boat into the huge wave. It threw his vessel into the air, but the boat landed intact. More big waves were to follow, tossing the boat around in swirling currents.
But Wimon believed staying away from the shore was their best chance of survival. If the boat was damaged, at least he had the chance of floating in the ocean rather than being swept towards the shore and smashed against rocks or another vessel.
Wimon doesn't know how long he was at the mercy of the waves for — he estimates about 30 minutes. His thoughts turned to his family and how he wished he could say goodbye to everyone. But as suddenly as it had begun, the ocean returned to its regular calm.
Both Wimon and his brother had survived and started to limp back to shore when they felt it was safe enough.
In all, a flotilla of about 10 longtail boats seemed to have survived and were following Wimon back. He was eager to tell family and friends of his amazing adventure and perhaps hear from them — after listening to radio and TV — what had caused the freak occurrence.
He was also considering what repairs he would need to make to his damaged boat, but as he got closer to the shore the severity of what had happened became clear.
"At least 100 boats were completely wrecked," he said. "They were broken in a thousand pieces. I saw many people floating in the water. So I told my brother to help them."
About 2km from shore, the difficulty of making life and death decisions soon became real.
They managed to pluck 20 people from the water and take them to safety on their small, stricken vessel. But still, there were hundreds of people in the sea, and Wimon could not help them all, even though he wanted to. He was worried that if he went into the congested area of survivors they would all try and climb on his small boat and it would sink.
"It was hard to watch them die, but if I decided to go in to get them, the 20 people I rescued and myself wouldn't have made it as well," Wimon said.
While he is not proud of what he did, Wimon said he waited for all of them to "sink" before making his way to his village with the 20 survivors on board.
But as his boat approached Ban Nam Khem around noon, his own personal nightmare was about to unfold. Wimon was numb at the vision before him. The village where he had lived all his life and raised his family had been completely destroyed.
He remembers jumping off the boat and screaming like a "crazy person". The worst fear started to percolate through his mind — were his wife and children dead?
Wimon ran down the mud-covered road towards his home. It was strewn with dead bodies, tin roofing, wooden planks and motorcycles — all which had been part of a normal village only hours before.
His hands shaking, Wimon's own piece of land finally came into view. He fell to his knees in shock at the sight that greeted him.
"My whole house was completely destroyed," he said. "The place where I used to eat, sleep and live with my family had been replaced by a pile of wood and tin."
"Dang! Dang!" he desperately called in the hope his wife would answer. But all he heard were moans and crying from across the village. He continued to search, but there was no sign of his wife or two daughters.
Eventually, a neighbour told Wimon some of the injured and survivors had been evacuated to Takua Pa Hospital.
Wimon arrived at the hospital with little hope of finding his family among the survivors. But then his wife finally answered his call. "Wimon," he heard a familiar female voice shout, her voice breaking. It was Dang. Her face was injured and she was in tears.
"I am sorry, I am so sorry," Dang told Wimon, crying. Although he did not want to hear the words, he knew what she was about to tell him. "We lost both of our daughters," were the last words Wimon heard before he collapsed.
He woke up and cried until he passed out. Wimon's understandable reaction to the loss continued for 24 hours until he considered the slim possibility that the girls may still be alive. He and Dang decided to go back to the village and look for their daughters.
Dang told her husband that she was able to save the girls from the first wave when it swept through the village, but not the second. "It was bigger and stronger. All of us were under the water. When I made my way up to the surface, both of my daughters were gone."
After 11 days of searching, Wimon and his wife found their daughters' bodies. n
TODAY
Ten years after the tsunami, Wimon cannot go back to the sea.
In all, he lost eight family members in the tragedy. The military, NGOs and volunteers helped rebuild Ban Nam Khem village and Wimon and his wife Dang now run a grocery store.
After the tragedy he gave away his two fishing boats and disbanded the family fish farm business. For the first two years he spent every day at the cemetery where his relatives’ bodies are kept.
Despite the financial help and kindness of family and friends, Wimon acknowledged he needed professional help to get through.
“I know I needed help,” he said. “Money, food, clothes and a new home won’t get me back on track. I’m glad I decided to talk to the psychiatrists. They helped me get through the tough times,” he said.
But the healing is far from complete and may never be.
In April 2012, when another large earthquake in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, triggered a tsunami alert, the whole village was evacuated to higher ground.
But Wimon and his friend ignored the alert and ran to the beach. “I wanted to see it with my own eyes,” he said. “I wanted to see what it looks like. I was ready to face the killer wave again.” That time there was no tsunami.
Tears streaming down his face, Wimon says despite the rebuilding, life can never be the same for those who lost loved ones. Memories can’t be left behind.
“You can rebuild the village, but you can’t repair my broken heart,” he said. “This nightmare will haunt me for the rest of my life. I will never forget it.” n