'An absolute nightmare'

By Dane Olsen - Daily Herald Correspondent

Posted Monday, January 10, 2005

Roselle resident Dane Olsen is a senior at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is finishing a study-abroad program at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. Olsen, a journalism major, wrote this account Dec. 27 from Krabi, a Thailand coastal town where he was vacationing with family. On Dec. 26, an earthquake sparked a deadly tsunami that hit southeast Asia and Africa.

I was awoken yesterday morning by the shaking of my bed, but as a Midwest boy who had never been in an earthquake I didn't realize what was going on. Little did I know that the most powerful earthquake in 40 years had rocked the ocean floor off the coast of Indonesia and caused massive tidal waves that would hit Thailand within a couple of hours.

The morning began as any other here in this country that I've come to know over the past five months. There were beautiful skies overhead and people were out on the streets opening up their shops and touting their boat services to the tourists looking to make it to their beach resort destinations.

After breakfast, I took off for the Krabi airport to pick up my brother, Jake, and his girlfriend, Karen. Upon arrival, I found that I would have to wait another hour before their flight would arrive due to a delay. It seemed a small inconvenience at the time but actually served as a savior to the safety of our family.

Just before Jake's flight touched down, a news report hit the airport TV of a massive tsunami that pounded a popular island destination just south of where we were. Very little was known at the time and people continued to go about their business as normal.

We arrived back at Krabi town where we expected to meet up with my mom and dad and catch the long-tail boat to Railay Beach, but we rather found a town in chaos.

Reports had come in of tsunamis wrecking the shores of Ko Phi Phi, Phuket and other beach areas in the region. The beach area that we had our reservations at had been reportedly wiped out and the area's history had just traumatically changed forever.

As the day unfolded, we began to see the effects - truck ambulances were flying through town all day and night as boats kept arriving at the docks with the most recently injured and dead. Survivors began arriving and sharing their stories. The couple in a boat that stared straight into the tidal wave. The bloodied girl that was snorkeling with her boyfriend but hadn't seen him since the wave hit. The wounded man that was in his bungalow on Ko Phi Phi when the tsunami swept the shore and crushed the bungalow on top of him. I was actually just speaking with him minutes ago of his experience and he is still looking for one of the friends that he was there with.

He told me of his experience on the island yesterday morning as he suddenly found himself crushed beneath lumber and water. He eventually dragged himself from the water to high ground, where he spent the next 36 sleepless hours until his med flight out earlier today. He began to compare his arrival at the Krabi hospital as entering a war zone, but then corrected himself by saying that it had to be even worse.

The personal accounts are crushing, especially so when I realize that it is the lucky people that I have been speaking with. The stories of those who suffered a much worse fate can only be imagined.

The situation here can be described as an absolute nightmare. Please keep these people in your thoughts and prayers.