The wave took her.

Ian and his daughter.

Sesa To'omalatai had been at the big house with her son Ian when the wave came. He was making breakfast for his parents and did not see the wave until it was too late. “I could see people panicking and running but I didn’t know why. I saw people pointing out to the sea, they were saying that a wave is coming. But I wasn’t paying attention and then it was like the wave was boiling over and I got such a fright. It wasn’t even thirty seconds and the wave hit us where we were standing at the back of the house by the kitchen. My wife was carrying our daughter and I caught hold of my mother. The wave hit and destroyed everything. We all went together out to the sea, I grabbed a tree branch and hung on to it with my mother while my wife and daughter were taken far away. We were floating in the sea and I was trying to pull us in because I could see we were drifting further and further out, so I tried to pull us more towards the land. Another wave came and that’s when my mother slipped from my grip, the wave took her. I ended up stuck on the seawall but my mother had gone. My wife and daughter made it to the roadside near the church. People from the village came to help. We looked for my mother and we found her at the back of our house. I wasn’t badly injured, but my mother was dead.”

Sesa was the only person killed at Vailoa village. She was seventy years old and the mother of ten children. Ian’s little girl is named after her grandmother. He holds her gently with huge hands and cries in the afternoon sun as carpenters hammer and saw, rebuilding the petrol station

Death is like a knife going through your heart.

Lesa Foti Tuvale is seventy-five years old. He is not a man who lives a sedentary life or who overindulges on heavy fare. Two weeks after the tsunami, Lesa sits under a canvas awning with a bush knife beside him. His hands are worn with black earth. He is the father of six children – one boy and five girls. Lesa’a daughter Leueta was killed in the tsunami. Often when a child dies, we are plagued with questions. Were we good parents? What could I have done differently? Our grief is serrated with guilt and self-doubt. Lesa is no different. On the morning of the tsunami, Lesa had angrily punished his daughter Leueta before she went to work at Taufua Beach Resort.

“This is the only daughter of mine that is naughty. I’m always looking for a stick to smack her with because she was very difficult and wouldn’t listen to her mother. This is the duty of the parent to discipline the children…but it’s so hard. I don’t know. I just pray to God and hope that I was doing the right thing. Who knows if I’m wrong or if my children are wrong – only God can judge.
It was dark when I got word that she had died. And her body had been found. I felt my heart breaking and tears sprang to my eyes. I left everything at that time and just went and sat at the hospital where they were bringing people. I just wanted to see her body. They brought in a group of bodies and I saw my daughter amongst them and I just went and wept on her. Its hard to explain. Its right about the saying that death is like a knife going through your heart, you don’t know how to move on.”

After. Thoughts. Rob Bebrouth. Survivor, Australia.

The Aust team prep to fly out Rob Bebrouth.

My sincere hope is that the Samoans have learnt from this terrible tragedy and have put in place a Response Plan in the event of a repeat Tsunami because it is not “if” but “when”. This is especially important in the tourist areas and every Fale location should have a Response Plan in place and it must be communicated to all who come to stay.

After. Thoughts. Becky Glew, Survivor.

UK survivors, Helen Wright and Becky Glew, photo courtesy of ITN News.

"My boyfriend and I are expecting our first child on the 30th of July, 2010. Having a baby is something we had always talked about but I would put it off as ‘the time wasn’t right’. However, the tsunami made me realize that life is for living and there is not a minute to spare. The pregnancy has also made me look to the future instead of dwelling on the horrors of that day and it has truly helped me to move on. I still have fears and nightmares but my recovery from the trauma has been much swifter – it will truly be a magical baby when it’s born.”
Becky Glew, UK. Holidaying at Lalomanu on 29/09.

After. Thoughts. Sally Adye, Survivor

"We will never ever forget the Samoan people that day and how they had lost so much. And yet they made sure we were alright. They gave us shelter, food and drink. They organized everyone and got us safely to Apia. We heard that it was after we all left that they started their own grieving. We will always be hugely thankful for all they did for us at such a traumatic and sad time. These wonderful people had not only lost loved ones and friends but they had also lost their homes and their livelihood.”
Sally Adye, New Zealand. Holidaying at Lalomanu on 29/09.

After. Thoughts. Fitiao Taitasi, American Samoa.

“I want everyone out there to know how grateful we are for their love and support. There were so many people – even strangers – sending us messages of comfort on the internet and praying for us. I miss my daughter Vaijoresa so much, we have fixed up our house and everything, but it still doesn’t feel right because she’s not here to share it with us. It helps me to know that so many people out there are caring and hurting for us. There is no way I can thank all these people. They’ve been so supportive to me and my family. Please tell them in your book – thank you.”
Taitasi Fitiao, American Samoa.

An Initial Book Review

The Tsunami Book recounts a few moments of terror that few in this life ever experience. Lani's ability to distill the actual experiences of individuals, families and villages is remarkable. Personally, my mental state can only absorb a few of them at a sitting. It has taken me much longer to read the book than I originally thought it would. I soon found that the reality of the disaster soon became very personal. Lani's descriptions created mental images of persons and places I know in a very general sense. But they soon became even more familiar as she takes us through the devastation, the anxiety and apprehension and the multiple routes of escape - and even through the agony of the tragic losses suffered.

I find little to critique in the vivid details of an experience of a lifetime. The value of the book is that it reconstructs those terrible events in a meaningful way for those who actually lived it. For those of us who were not there - it creates for us a realistic recap that stays in our minds as if we had been there.

- James Winegar, RLS Foundation

All I saw was death coming.

Ask Fineaso what happened. A young man with a welcoming grin, Fineaso has much to smile about. He’s a newly wed and the father of a miracle child. His son Narineaso was born two days before the tsunami and the New Zealand media called him – “the youngest person to survive Samoa’s devastating Pacific Tsunami.” Yes, Fineaso may be living in a tent with no running water and wearing clothes donated by compassionate givers in faraway lands – but his cheerfulness is catching. Especially when he talks about his son. Who was renamed Tsunami after September 29th. “My uncle saved him. We were so happy and relieved that he was alright. It was a miracle.”

That day Fineaso was sleeping in one of the beach fales that the family hired out to tourists. When the wave came he ran to the back house where his sister told him to grab their eighty-five year old grandmother.

“As I reached our old lady, the wave hit us and I was trying to keep her safe. It carried us and I was trying to swim until we reached a branch and so we tried holding on to it. I told her that we’ll wait here and if the wave comes again and carries us or kills us then so be it. I was just worried that a piece of metal would pierce myself or the old lady, but it was God’s will that we were saved.”

The next wave was far more cruel. “When it came it was all black and all I saw was death coming. I grabbed the old lady and we went but there was nothing more we could do because it caught us. But I didn’t let her go…I took her with me, I held her sleeve tightly in my left hand and started swimming with my right and when we got close to the mountain, I carried her on my back.”

Fineaso’s grandmother Fuailuma Sagale, is a wizened little old lady who’s eyes cloud over when she remembers their bewildering journey in the water.“When we got to the mountain he left me there and he went to help the others. I was very worried about everyone. Oh my goodness, this was something so different from anything that has ever happened to our village. My other son helped me up to the top of the mountain and there were so many people up there, small children, elderly people and everyone was congregated there.”

My wife said, 'You just want to be God.'

Molesie and Silaumea Pritchard with their family.

Molesi Pritchard is a man of many talents. An electrician who has been busy since the tsunami, bringing light for his neighbors in their flimsy huts and tents. He’s a baker who would support his four children with sweet baked treats and hot bread. A musician and composer. Molesi cannot read but his wife Silaumea writes down all his songs. Including the new song he has written about the waves in their villages. Which is playing on the radio the day we come to visit.

After the earthquake ended, Molesi told Silaumea that they should go up the hill because there was going to be a tsunami. “My wife said I just want to be God and know everything all the time. But I replied that God doesn’t put anything bad in peoples hearts, he only sends good things and we should listen.”

Molesi scooped up his youngest daughter and started walking to the mountainside. He was midway up the steep cliff on one of many rough tracks when the waves came. He saw his wife and children washed away. He called the emergency number for help and they told him to get to higher ground, that help was on its way.“ I said, please my wife has died. I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t hear her so I thought she had died. Then I called the Red Cross number and asked them please we need help. My wife is dead and a lot of people in our village are dead. All our houses are gone.”

Molesi left his daughter at the top and came down to look for his wife and children. Thankfully she and the children were alive. Injured, but alive. He took them up to the hill where the rest of the village had gathered. On the fifth day after the tsunami, Molesi wrote the first song – about his wife. When he thought she was dead and when she was found. About his village of Saleapaga and how the sea washed it away.

Tsunami never happened in those days.

At Lalomanu, the earthquake felt to Tufaiga Fatuesiafioga “like the ground was going to open up.” She told her mother they should get away from their house on the beach. “My mother said to me that nothing [like tsunami] ever happened in those days. I said to her that those days were different from these days.” When the wave came, Tufaiga was separated from her mother and washed out to sea. A drifting log saved her. Her mother and grandbaby both drowned. Raw grief is a gaping wound in our conversation.

I shut my eyes.

Tina Niusila and her children.

Often it was the elders who resisted the messages of the media tsunami awareness campaign, shrugging the dangers off as “things that only happen in other countries.” Tina Niusila of Saleapaga told her parents they should go to higher ground. “Like what they said on the tv. Nobody was listening to me so I just got my kids together and we walked to the high road with our bag.” Sitting on the hill, Tina couldn’t bear to even look at the wave that engulfed her village. “I shut my eyes, I was too scared to look at it. I could only hear its noise.”

An excuse to make us get some exercise!

James Belford with staff at Poutasi Hospital.

At Poutasi Hospital, the Nursing Manager James Belford remembered previous drills carried out by the Health Department. After the earthquake, with a wary eye on the sea several hundred meters away, he had his staff evacuate the handful of patients a short way up the hill and over the main road. Everyone thought it was a joke and there was much laughter. “Eh – did you ever see a tsunami here?! Of course not…we know you are just finding excuses to make us get some exercise a ea?!” They scoffed at James as they strolled to wait under the shade of the mango tree by the roadside store, but a precise, efficient man, he refused to be budged from adhering to department protocol. There was no laughter when the water came rushing in to the village below them.

Papa, fa'amalosi.

The maximum runup of the Samoa tsunami was 14.5 meters - at Lepa village and 11.4 meters at Lalomanu. A standard two-storey house is eight meters high. Set it in the Samoa tsunami at its worst hit points and you wouldn’t even know it was there. But what does that mean for a regular person like you and me? I am five feet nine. It would take at least seven of me, standing on each others shoulders before I would be able to get my head above water at Lalomanu. What does that mean for a parent with a small child? Like thirty-five year old Maua Toa?

When the wave slammed into their village, Maua grabbed his seven year old son Aukuso and ran. They were smashed into a huge, majestic-sized breadfruit tree. Maua held his son crushed between him and the tree trunk. They were underwater while the sea tried to rip them away. Maua pushed Aukuso up into the branches of the tree, helping him climb higher and higher as the second wave engulfed them again. Higher than the roof of their samoan fale. Sweeping over the edges of their neighbors two storey roof. Maua was exhausted. Debris continued to plough into him, weakening his hold on the trunk. But Aukuso was foremost in his mind.

“When I looked up the wave was on top of us. I couldn’t breathe. The only thing I wanted was some air so my son could breathe…”

Maua shoved Aukuso further up the tree until he was safe. Crying above him in the final, smallest branches. Gulping mouthfuls of the sweet morning air. As Maua battled to keep his head out of the water, he thought about letting go. Giving in. But then Aukuso called to him,“Papa, be strong. If you die, I’m going to jump down so we will die together. Fa’amalosi!”

Maua hung on. A child’s plea gave him the strength he needed. “I did what my son was saying. I ended up being saved because of what my son said, to be strong.”

After Thoughts. Thomas Gogola, Survivor.

“After the tsunami we stayed in Apia for a few days, trying to pick up the pieces...as we talked to others who had lost family and friends and watched the death toll rise on television, my only question was – if God existed, then why would he have done this to such a religious country?”

Thomas Gogola,United Kingdom. Guest at Maninoa Surf Camp.

After Thoughts. Andrew Peteru, Public Health.

NZ/AUST army help install water tanks at Saleapaga. Photo courtesy of the NZ Defence Force.

“We couldn’t have done it without international assistance – those people that came in and worked on the ground. Never mind about the ‘big wigs’ who say ‘we helped, we did this and that.’ Im talking about those who worked with us. Their careers are moving from one country to another in response to disasters. The people who helped us here – they’re now in Haiti helping with the earthquake response, that’s all they do. From here some had to leave quickly to go to the Indonesia earthquake disaster. That gave me strength that there is this international support. So when the Haiti thing happened, I felt for the Public Health director of the country, you’re thinking about all your counterparts and all these kinds of people when you watch TV and you see what’s happening over there. You know exactly who those people are and what they’re doing. For me, it was really amazing, I’m very grateful for their strength.”
Andrew Peteru, Asst. CEO Health, Samoa.

After Thoughts. Filomena Nelson, Disaster Management.

“Sometimes people are ungrateful, very ungrateful…Whatever donations we get, we give out. If we get boxes of eleni ( mackerel) then we give out boxes of eleni. And some families say, we don’t eat eleni, our family don’t want this. And I just get disgusted by their ungratefulness, some of them don’t value the donations from people. I advise my staff, if the people don’t want it, just bring it back. But you know what? They don’t want to return it, the people complain but they still keep the eleni, they’ll eat it!”
Filomena Nelson, Chief Disaster Management Officer, Samoa.

After Thoughts. Robert Toelupe, Rescuer.

“We need to get our kids to be more able in water. We live on an island surrounded by water and yet most people can’t swim. When I first moved back here, there were at least six drownings in the first three years and that’s way too high for a place that’s surrounded by water. During the tsunami, I saw people that were too scared to go and help others – because they couldn’t swim. If more of our people had been confident in the water, then maybe there wouldn’t have been so many deaths.”
Robert Toelupe, US Navy Veteran, Leone, American Samoa.

After Thoughts. Graham Ansell, Survivor.

Teams search Lalomanu wreckage for the missing. Photo courtesy of the NZ Defence Force.
“We want to say how fantastic the fire service was, and the medical teams. They were there so quickly. Anyone who ever says that there was not enough fast action after the tsunami – they’re wrong. It was unbelievably good, especially for a country like Samoa where you wouldn’t think they would be that well organized. If we had that sort of reaction time in New Zealand, you’d be thrilled. It was sensational. I take my hat off to whoever helps organize Civil Defence in Samoa.”
Graham Ansell, New Zealand. Guest at FaoFao Beach Fales, Saleapaga.

After. Thoughts. Jared Schwalger, Father.Son.

“Honestly I have to say that I have lost my faith in our people. I have lost my faith that some Samoans deserve a better chance in life, a better opportunity. After everything that’s happened, I try to make sense of it – why would people do such things? Why would people steal from people who have lost loved ones? They even stole the earrings from my daughter’s dead body. I think it’s because they never had those things, like mag wheels, pots and pans, spoons… We’re suffering because we lost our loved ones, we lost every single thing – homes, kids, parents – everything but for those people, the tsunami was a blessing. Now they have the chance to take all the stuff they never had before..”
Jared Schwalger, Malaela. Father of Teancum and Abish, taken by the 29/09 tsunami. Son of Jerry and Metita Schwalger, taken by 29/09 tsunami.

After. Thoughts. From Commissioner Tony Hill, FESA

Commissioner Hill with overseas disaster response team members. Photo courtesy of the NZ Defence Force.

“I didn’t know that Mother Nature could be like this. I had trained for it but to have it happen in our own back yard, I just couldn’t believe it. Cyclones Ofa and Val were nothing like this. Out of the blue like this. The amount of lives that were lost …If it had hit Apia, we would have lost so much more. We were lucky it was early hours of the morning. People were awake. People were evacuating. We were very lucky that it was only a very small percentage of Samoa that got hit. It’s a wake up call. Its telling us – hey, you’ve got to be prepared. Out of all this, we’ve been very fortunate, we’ve got a lot of equipment given to us by the Australians and New Zealanders when they were here helping us out… What it’s saying to me now, is that you’ve got the equipment and you’ve got to put it into place and be ready.” Commissioner Tony Hill, Fire and Emergency Services Authority, Samoa.