NEW DELHI, India (AFP) - Meghan Rajshekhar, 13, disappeared along with 77 other people when the giant tsunami struck an Indian air force base by the sea on the remote Car Nicobar island.
Locals found her walking in a daze along the beach on Tuesday after clinging to a door on the stormy seas for two days, the Hindustan Times reported Wednesday.
The air force officer's daughter and her parents were swept away along with countless thousands others as a massive earthquake off neighbouring Indonesia sent tsunami crashing across the Indian ocean.
"She told defence personnel that she had cried out 11 times when choppers hovered over the ocean in search of survivors on Sunday," the daily quoted a flight lieutenant Bhandarkar as saying.
"No one spotted her."
But Meghna, badly bruised, told rescuers she knew which direction land lay and just kept floating on towards the shore.
"In the end it was the waves that washed so many thousands of others away that washed her ashore," the Hindustan Times said.
"This was a miracle in the midst of the disaster the tsunami wrought," the air base station commander V. V. Bandhopadhyay told the Press Trust of India (news - web sites).
The miracle girl also had to keep an eye out for numerous sea snakes.
Meghna was taken to the Andamans capital Port Blair and on to relatives in Hyderabad after medical treatment, Lieutenant Governor Ram Kapse said.
"Her parents, sadly, haven't survived."
The 76 others are still reported missing.
PTI said 100 people perished at the base.
At least 4,000 lost their lives on the Andamans chain of 572 islands, but many thousands more are feared dead, officials say, as rescuers struggle to reach remote islands.
Car Nicobar was very badly hit and the air base severely damaged.
The Nicobar group lies about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Sumatra.
The Andamans, 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from mainland India, are spread over 800 kilometres (500 miles) with a population of about 350,000.
Tsunami survivor says corpses kept him company during 8-day ocean ordeal
KLANG, Malaysia (AP) - An Indonesian tsunami survivor said Wednesday he was surrounded by the bodies of victims "left and right" while spending eight days adrift on the high seas before being rescued by a Japanese-owned ship.
Rizal Shahputra was cleaning a mosque in Banda Aceh on Sumatra island Dec. 26 when screaming children rushed in to warn him about the tsunami, but the surging waves swept them out to sea before they could escape.
Rizal, who was rescued by the cargo ship MV Durban Bridge on Monday and brought to this port Wednesday, said he clung to floating planks with scores of other people - all of whom were eventually swallowed up by the sea.
"At first, there were some friends with me," a sun burnt, weak-looking Rizal told reporters before being taken away in an ambulance to a local hospital. "After a few days, they were gone. . . . I saw bodies left and right."
Rizal, who is in his 20s, subsisted on rainwater and coconuts he opened with a door latch. He said at least one ship sailed by without noticing him. Then, the crew of the MV Durban Bridge container vessel spotted Rizal floating on an uprooted tree, about 160 kilometres west from the shores of Aceh.
Rizal, who suffered cuts on his legs, has been hospitalized in Klang town, about 30 kilometres east of Kuala Lumpur.
The ship's chief officer, Huang Wen Feng, described Rizal's survival as "a miracle." "When I saw him, I was very very surprised to see someone standing," Huang said. "He was shouting at us. I couldn't believe it."
The ship is owned by Tokyo-based shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha.
Rizal's ordeal and miraculous survival mirrored that of an Indonesian woman who held on to a sago palm tree for five days in the Indian Ocean after the tsunami swept her from her home.
Malawati, 23, was rescued by a Malaysian tuna ship and arrived Monday in Malaysia's northwestern Penang state, where she has been hospitalized. Officials said she had been bitten by fish and was traumatized by the ordeal, but kept alive by eating the palm's fruit and bark.
Indonesian officials have been trying to trace Malawati's husband, who has been missing.
Some of the most amazing tales of survival from the devastating tsunami have come from the children who miraculously lived to tell their tales at the Phuket Hospital in Thailand.
One story that struck us was that of a 9-year-old boy, who had tubes in his nose to help him breathe. His name was Philip and he was from Kazakhstan.
Philip survived along with a younger brother, but the rest of his family was swept away to their doom. The boy held on by hoisting himself onto a drifting mattress.
He’s a miracle child because he saved himself. But what is so incredibly sad is that he is all alone.
Justin Balding, my Russian-speaking producer, asked Philip if he wanted to use our phone to call anybody. He only looked up at him and said, “There is no one to call.”
Many stories
There are just so many stories here, more than a week after the devastating tsunami that killed at least 5,000 people in Thailand — and more than 140,000 across Southeast Asia.
One child we met, a 5-year-old girl from Sweden, said she got sucked up in the wave, which spit her out up high on a hillside, where she was left unconscious.
Ultimately, a Thai woman found her and returned the girl to her family. The girl’s father said he’s been trying to find the woman to say thank you, but he doesn’t know who she is.
Amidst the stories of survival, there are many many more tragedies.
One man came here to find his missing daughters and learned that one survived and the other perished in the tsunami.
He is trying to make sense of the fact that one of his children won’t come back and he is trying to figure out how he is going to explain it to the one daughter that lived.
In the maternity ward a woman named Melanie tightly held a little baby. "This is Jade and she saved my life,” she said.
Melanie went into labor just before the tsunami hit. She lost her home and so many friends, but she has Jade. So, she feels what many have felt here -- mixed emotions.
Saved by a princess
Hannes Bergman, 18 months old, may never remember, but he was a very lucky toddler.
Somehow the young Swede ended up in a pile of rubble after the giant waves hit Phuket. According to his family members, he was spotted by a Thai princess who was staying in a nearby building.
Because she has a lot of contacts, she was able to get a helicopter to airlift him and get him to a hospital. Hannes' father, Michael Bergman, survived the tragedy and was reunited with his child.
Michael Bergman was incredibly moved, saying that the princess not only saved his son, but saved his own soul. Because, by giving him back his son, she saved that part of him, too.
Yet, as with so many of these miracle stories, there is a sad chapter as well. Bergman’s wife, Cecilia, is still listed as missing, and the princess lost her own son in the tragedy.
Kids survival skills
When you are walking down the halls of the Phuket hospital, you just keep seeing kids.
Twelve-year-old Isabelle, another visitor from Sweden, described the scene as the waves came crashing onto the Thai beaches.
She said she had been afraid of sharks. But that fear faded as she was sucked into the sea.
She said she didn’t panic, and she was looking around for someone to help her up. At one point, she saw bodies. Floating nearby, there was a round object, but Isabella couldn’t tell if it was a coconut or someone’s head. So she didn’t grab it.
Ultimately, she suffered only torn tendons in an arm. She was rescued by a passing boat. Her parents also survived, but her older sister remains missing.
All of this is very 9/11-ish. So many days after the tsunami hit, people still think that some how, some way, their loved ones are clinging to a tree or is somewhere dazed and confused wandering around.
Psychologist's advice
There are stations set up in every hospital and even on some roadsides where psychologists from all over the world help the survivors.
One psychologist explained that some of the younger kids don’t even remember what happened, and they may never recall the details.
It’s the older kids who end up internalizing the trauma. Sometimes, according to the psychologists, it’s just about unloading emotions. The more the survivors talk, the more they get it out.
In the end, the most amazing story here is watching the ability of human beings to survive.
This is the worst tragedy I’ve ever seen, but the resiliency, especially of kids, is just amazing.
Children who have come through a staggering natural disaster are now laughing and playing ball in the corridors of the hospital.
The kids have it better than the adults, because they don’t have all of the knowledge that comes with being a grownup. They just know that something scary happened and here they are. Sometimes they are the luckier ones.
12-31-2004 02:56 AM
Sea snakes!?
