December 26, 2004 disaster strikes in the form of a tsunami.

A German lady who was staying in one of the bungalows came running back to warn against a giant wave. First I didnt take it so seriously and I wanted to check the internet for information, but then she told me the water in the sea had gone way back, just like in the movie deep impact. I listened carefully, and then I heard something that sounded like an approaching train. Shouting go go go I ran into the restaurant, and with the staff and a few hotelguests I ran inland. We fled on the flat roof of a 2 story structure 40 meters behind my resort. When we reached the roof my resort was already covered with 6 meters of water, a 10 second delay would have been fatal. We were terribly afraid the building would collapse. The second wave was somewhat smaller, we managed to rescue several people who floated by. 3 Thai women who worked for me did not go into the building but kept running inland, nobody has seen them since. Also several hotelguests who at that moment were in the resort or at the beach did not survive. When the water finally receded, I saw that my resort had completely gone except for the foundations and 6 coconut trees. Opposite me was a German bakery, even the heavy equipment there like ovens (over 100 kilo) had disappeared, of his 2 houses only the concrete floors were left, also the baker didnt survive. In small groups everybody left the building, and with 4 hotelguests I found my way through the field covered with ruines and corpses to the main building of another resort that was one of the only 4 buildings that still stood at Bang Niang Beach which had over 20 bungalow resorts. After about an hour somebody came to tell us we had to go to an improvised evacuation camp on top of a hill, everybody was still very much afraid for new giant waves. The next day we were evacuated to a larger camp, where I soon decided to go back to Takua Pa, the municipality seat, among other things to file a police report I would need to get a new passport. To look for my girlfriend who has been found since I went to the hospital and to the temple were hunderds of bodies were kept, till yesterday 30/12 there was a sickening stench. 28/12 I went back to the disaster area because my car had been found, 3 KM inland, total loss of course. I was impressed to see the rescue operation had made a good start already, most of the streets had been cleared. But many bodies are still laying under the salty mud and the rubble, the smell in the disaster area is still very bad.