To watch live footage of the tsunami sweeping through areas in Japan is to really see and understand what 29/09 survivors meant when they spoke of..."A beast that leapt out of the sea and ran towards us. It was the colour of night... It was like a wild animal with huge fins, but it was pitch black and the mist or sea spray that was coming out of it was also black, like the smoke from a umu. We saw the wave coming like fire, so we ran.” We are watching cars trying to escape the broiling onslaught of black water and churning debris. People standing on rooftops, people running, people waving and screaming for help.
It is difficult to really comprehend what we are watching. But one thing is certain. As one of my children exclaimed softly - "Mum, the tsunami that hit us in Samoa was a baby compared to this one."
2 comments:
The footage brought back images that I had not felt so vividly for a long while. As I have told anyone willing to listen (not everybody wants to know, mind you), one of the things that still wakes me up and scares me out of my sleep is the black tongue of the sea-beast. The helicopter footage caught the sweeping advance of the terrifying tongue so well. It is extremely hard for those of us who were caught in it on 29 Sep 2009 to look at the TV without reliving the terror.
This must surely be the first time a tsunami has been caught so vividly on camera like this. I too am finding the footage very distressing - and i am not a 29/09 survivor. However, like you, I find 'not everybody wants to know' how often my mind screams about the similarities between this disaster and that of 29/09. They were showing a man sitting and weeping - after finding his family had been killed - and i have SEEN THIS IMAGE BEFORE. The people carrying their elderly on their backs to safety. The Search and rescue trying to make sense of the mangled mess, where do they begin looking. We have been here before.
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