Tsunami, I came to know of this word only after the 2004 disaster which killed around 3,00,000 people. I am going to write about what I did the whole day, so if you are here thinking of getting any useful information forget about that and start reading to know more about how I specifically spent that disastrous day.
December 26th, 2004 Sunday
I had a computer class at 8’0 clock and I got up at around 7:10, then the usual saga of brushing and bathing went on in lightening speed. Then I had some breakfast, we were not supposed to switch on the T.V that early in the morning, so had my breakfast quietly. We live in the first floor, so I came down to the street, I was astonished to see a few people talking about something in groups. I was about to start to the class, one of my neighbors said that it is dangerous now to go away from home as water from the sea is entering the city. I thought what rubbish this guy is talking, but believed after everybody said the same thing. I ran back to my home within second by making three steps at a time and said that to everybody. We finally switched on the T.V. to our astonishment every channel was covering about the tsunami, what caused it and how many people died. I saw this show for an hour, it said that the tsunami may come again the same day and asked everybody to leave the place immediately. My house is just 2 km away from the sea and we were all a bit frightened but we were never making a effort to move from our place as we lived in the first floor and the sea has to face a lot of buildings before it even nears our house.
We were all glued to the T.V for about an hour and called all the relatives and friends to know about their safety and/or inform them about tsunami. Many people called us and enquired about tsunami as we were near the sea. The phone was ringing continuously throughout the day. Then hours passed by but the information from the sea front was the same “BE SAFE AND READY TO MOVE AT SHORT NOTICE, EXPECTING MORE HIGH WAVES THROUGHOUT THE DAY”. Even the lunch hour passed and we were all discussing about the tsunami and especially about the hardships of the fisher folk people.
At around 3 ‘0 clock, me and my cousin brother same age as mine became very curious and planned to go to the sea front to get an first hand information ourselves and to really watch the high tides. We went to their in his scooty but we parked the vehicle a long way away and had to walk through the distance. We went walking in the street that directly leads to the beach sand, the street has the government quarters, the quarters will always be in worst conditions ( you know about the government quarters). The place looked haunting because it was deserted except the a lot people searching for their dear ones and few people searching for their belongings. Around 100 media persons were there just trying to get a glimpse of the sea and broadcast information to their respective channels. We were going around looking at different people who have been plundered of their wealth by the same sea which had provided their living all through their age, people who cried having lost their relatives, and even some looters trying to get everything possible. Police had completely taken control our the area to avoid any enthusiasts and fools like us from venturing or going near the sea. Half an hour went on like this and suddenly everybody started shouting and started running away from the sea. We also started running back with fear, but I was astonished to see the reporters moving slowly even in that tense situation one of the reporters was very intelligent. One guy is driving a bike and the other guy is sitting backwards i.e., both had their faces in opposite direction, he was holding a handy cam and was capturing video live. I thought what a fool this guy is, he is not even caring about his life simply trying to get the videos. We came out of the street and when we neared our parking area, we saw that nobody was running, we spoke with a policeman over there and came to know it was a media gimmick done to capture video for the channels, so that they could show how people were running as though they have been there at real time of tsunami. I thought the media persons to be fool but they made a fool out of me including everyone there. I came back home and tsunami was the hot topic of discussion for the next one month.
I couldn't help anybody there, that was the bad part.......
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