THE 2004 TSUNAMI AND SOUTH AFRICAN JEWRY

David Saks is Associate Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Editor of Jewish Affairs. The following is an edited version of his article which first appeared in the Pesach 2005 issue of this journal.

When the ocean waters abruptly receded on the morning of 26 December 2004, it was a last-second warning to those lining the beaches throughout the eastern Indian Ocean that a massive catastrophe was about to unfold. A lucky few realized that something was wrong and began fleeing inland. Some would have been aware that a sudden withdrawal of the sea was a sure sign of an approaching tsunami, while others may simply have guessed that this extraordinary reversal of nature’s course could bode little good. At any rate, in the absence of any warning system, the recession of the waters was just about the only indication of what was to come. For over 300 000 unsuspecting people, from Indonesia to Thailand, Sri Lanka and India and all the way across the Somaliland on the west coast of Africa, it represented a silent death knell.

Tsunami – the word means “harbour wave” in Japanese, although so benign, almost banal, a rendition belies the destructive force of a phenomenon whereby vast walls of displaced water are propelled at terrifying speeds across the ocean. The Indian Ocean tsunami began with a massive undersea earthquake, the fourth largest ever recorded, off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake in turn generated a correspondingly massive tsunami. Ships are hardly affected by such upheavals, but once the waves reach land, the consequences can be devastating. Such was the case on that fateful Boxing Day of 2004.

What made this tsunami an international event was the fact that it occurred at the height of the holiday season, resulting in holidaymakers from all over the world being caught up in the tragedy. Amongst them were over 2000 South Africans vacationing in Thailand, particularly those on islands like Phuket and Phi Phi along its South Western coast. Approximately 200 of these were Jewish community members.

At 09h30 on 26 December, Mandelle Bernstein was in her Phuket hotel room. Three times during the night she had been aware of some tremors, but thought little of it at the time. Her husband Stephen and children David and Lisa were in the dining room about to have breakfast. A second daughter, Jody, was out with a friend. All of a sudden, she recalled, “people started to scream and point to the ocean. People started to run, just dropping their plates and screaming. It was just brown muddy water coming at one hell of a speed”.

Amidst scenes of panic and hysteria, the Bernsteins fought their way up to the fourth level of the hotel as the surging waves engulfed the streets outside and poured into the building. Wading through the incoming flood, they reached the stairs only just in time.

Meanwhile, similar scenes were taking place along coastlines throughout southern Thailand. Capetonians David Gordon, Rael Levitt and the Murinik family, Pam, Ralph and their son Dean, were breakfasting on the terrace of the Patong Beach Holiday Inn, while their friends Morris Isaacson and his long-time companion Dolores Ribeiro were out for a walk. It was Gordon who first saw the rapidly approaching wall of water and shouted a warning. He and Levitt were able to make their way to safety in the nearby hills, but the Muriniks were swept up by the water and together with fellow residents and floating debris of every description carried from room to room. They eventually ended up in the hotel conference room, by then to their necks in water; thankfully, the flood then began subsiding.

On Phi Phi island’s Charlie Beach Resort, Johannesburger Paul Sender and his companion from Pretoria Gabi Baron heard rather than saw the approaching deluge. Gabi remembered “a deafening hissing-rumbling noise like a jet engine at full throttle about to explode”, and which in that first moment of panic was assumed to signify a terrorist attack. Paul dragged her into the bathroom, moments before the bungalow was struck and within seconds demolished by a giant wave. Paul was probably killed outright by the collapsing walls. Gabi, badly injured but alive, was dug out two hours later. After lying on a beach for eight hours covered by a blanket, she was airlifted to the hospital in mainland Krabi.