HARROWING TALE SANTA MONICA COUPLE OFFERS FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS OF TSUNAMI WRECKAGE, AFTERMATH.Byline: Bill Becher Special to the Daily News On the day the tsunami struck South Asia This article is about the geopolitical region in Asia. For geophysical treatments, see Indian subcontinent. South Asia, also known as Southern Asia , Gene Kim and his wife Faye Wachs were 60 feet under water enjoying a scuba dive. Led by Yavit, their dive master, they kicked toward the wreck of the King Cruiser, a passenger ferry that had sunk eight miles off the coast of Thailand. As the couple from Santa Monica Santa Monica (săn`tə mŏn`ĭkə), city (1990 pop. 86,905), Los Angeles co., S Calif., on Santa Monica Bay; inc. 1886. Tourism and retailing are important, and the city has motion-picture, biotechnology, and software industries. got to the end of the wreck they felt a surge. Sediment from the ocean floor swirled up, cutting the visibility. Currents pulled Kim away from his wife. Yavit signaled Kim to make an emergency ascent, but the turbulent water pulled him deeper. ``That's when I got totally whited out,'' Kim said. ``I lost visibility and I lost Faye.'' Kim looked at his depth gauge and saw he was descending quickly. He would have to swim harder to reach the surface. ``I started to panic and banged up against the side of the wreck pretty hard,'' Kim said. The realization that he could get caught in the wreck added to his fear. ``I just kicked with everything I had for the surface,'' Kim said. ``The whole ordeal probably took about 90 seconds.'' Kim struggled toward the surface and began to see sunlight. He joined three other divers grasping a buoy line, fighting the current. After he surfaced, the dive boat A dive boat is a boat that scuba divers use to reach a diving site which they could not reach by swimming from land. Dive boat features Features that make a boat suitable for use by divers are:
``Yavit came over and gave me a big hug,'' Kim said. ``He looked really scared and relieved that I was alive.'' On the boat the couple talked about what had happened underwater. Yavit had grabbed Wachs' buoyancy compensator
 `yən–), upward force exerted by a fluid on any body immersed in it. Buoyant force can be explained in terms of Archimedes' principle. , they had surfaced together, swept far away from Kim. ``We were looking everywhere for him,'' Wachs said. ``Yavit kept saying, 'everything is fine' and then looking around frantically.'' Wachs said that when she saw Kim her first thought was, ``I told him to wear a wetsuit wet·suit also wet suit n. A tight-fitting permeable suit worn in cold water, as by skin divers, to retain body heat. wetsuit wet n → combinaison f de plongée .'' Her husband was covered in jellyfish jellyfish, common name for the free-swimming stage (see polyp and medusa), of certain invertebrate animals of the phylum Cnidaria (the coelenterates). The body of a jellyfish is shaped like a bell or umbrella, with a clear, jellylike material filling most of the stings. Relieved to have survived, they were mystified mys·ti·fy tr.v. mys·ti·fied, mys·ti·fy·ing, mys·ti·fies 1. To confuse or puzzle mentally. See Synonyms at puzzle. 2. To make obscure or mysterious. as to the cause of their wild adventure. The crew onboard the dive boat had only seen some big swells during the dive. ``Yavit had never seen anything like it before, and he was a very experienced diver,'' Kim said. An hour later the dive boat stopped at another site and the divers did a second dive. Although visibility had improved, the currents were still strong. The group agreed to cut the day short and head back to harbor. As they approached Koh Phi Phi Island they saw a lot of debris floating in the water. ``At first we just thought it was trash, and the dive master was complaining, 'Why would someone throw all this trash in the water?' '' Wachs said. ``Then we thought maybe a boat sank.'' Kim said he saw plastic bottles, a flip-flop, a beach chair, soccer balls, a plastic beach chair, a woman's purse and oil on the surface of the water. As they got closer they saw a group of boats huddled hud·dle n. 1. A densely packed group or crowd, as of people or animals. 2. Football A brief gathering of a team's players behind the line of scrimmage to receive instructions for the next play. 3. together about a mile from shore. At this point one of the other divers got a text message from his wife who was hiking on the island. It read ``Catastrophe.'' He messaged back ``What do you mean?'' The reply: ``Tsunami.'' ``That's when we first realized that something horrible had happened,'' Kim said. People on another dive boat told them a tsunami had wiped out the island, a lot of people were dead and the wall of water that had washed over both sides of the island was more than 30 feet high. ``My recurring nightmare is a giant wave,'' Wachs said in an e-mail to family. ``It is so much worse than I ever dreamed.'' When the couple's dive boat headed for shore they saw that the water was thick with debris. Things that had been on the beach, in cabanas or hotel rooms, shops and restaurants were now bobbing in the harbor. Kim and his wife saw many bodies floating under and next to the wreckage. ``We tried to do what we could to bring some of those bodies in,'' Kim said. When they reached shore Kim and his wife tried to find their bungalow at the Ko Phi Ko Phi is a small unoccupied island near Ko Mak, in Trat Province, Thailand. It can be reached with a sea kayak from Ko Mak. Ko Phi has nice places to snorkel, depending on the direction of wind. See also
``All our possessions were lost, our backpacks, our passports, everything,'' Kim said. Only a pair of Wachs' shorts remained. They found tourists at the hotel had started an ad hoc For this purpose. Meaning "to this" in Latin, it refers to dealing with special situations as they occur rather than functions that are repeated on a regular basis. See ad hoc query and ad hoc mode. command center behind the remnants of the hotel and set up a makeshift hospital. Two guests who were doctors were caring for the injured. ``You realized when you saw the chaos and people running around and all the dead bodies on the ground that we were on our own, at least for the next 12 to 18 hours,'' Kim said. Wearing flip-flops and their swimsuits, Kim and his wife took part in the search and rescue efforts, helping to extract people that were caught in the rubble. They helped carry people back to the makeshift hospital area, fashioning stretchers out of bamboo sticks and tarps. Kim remembers talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to a Belgian man who had a severely broken leg and head injuries. ``Faye grabbed his hand and asked him where he was from and if he was on the island with anyone,'' Kim said. ``He said he was with his wife but she had died.'' When the emergency helicopters arrived, Kim and Wachs helped unload supplies and lift the severely injured into the helicopters. ``The hard part for me was, of course, seeing dead bodies,'' Kim said. ``But maybe the hardest part was witnessing families or friends who realized they had lost loved ones loved ones npl → seres mpl queridos loved ones npl → proches mpl et amis chers loved ones love npl . There was a lot of crying and shrieking and indescribable grief.'' Kim, 34, a transportation consultant and his wife, 35, a sociology professor at Cal Poly Cal Poly may refer to:
Despite their ordeal they will continue to dive. ``We experienced something very scary,'' Kim said, ``but in my mind, being in the water probably saved our lives.'' The couple plans to return to Thailand to thank the people who helped them. Kim and Wachs have nothing but praise for the Thai people This article is about Thailand's ethnic majority. For other Tai ethnic groups, see Tai peoples. The Thai (or Tai) are the main ethnic group of Thailand and are part of the larger Tai ethnolinguistic peoples found in Thailand and adjacent countries in who offered them food and water at every turn and the government that provided free transportation to Bangkok and helped tourists get connected with their embassies. The couple hopes to encourage Americans to donate to relief and rebuilding efforts. ``Right now we're entering a critical stage where starvation and disease can result in more loss of life,'' Kim said. CAPTION(S): 4 photos, box Photo: (1) Wreckage of buildings on Kho Phi Phi Island, Thailand, caused by the Dec. 26 tsunami. A Santa Monica couple was scuba diving scuba diving Swimming done underwater with a self-contained underwater-breathing apparatus (scuba), as opposed to skin diving, which requires only a snorkel, goggles, and flippers. Scuba gear was invented by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Émile Gagnan in 1943. off the coast of Kho Phi Phi when the waves reached the coastline. Gene Kim/Special the the Daily News (2 -- 4) The devastation caused by the tsunami leveled miles of coastline on Thailand's Kho Phi Phi Island, including a luxury resort, above and below left. The waves, such the one crashing into Kho Phi Phi's Lo Dalun Bay, below right, caught on film by tourist Caroline Malatesta of Mountain View, Ala., were said to be 30 feet tall. Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. photos Box: AIDING TSUNAMI VICTIMS |
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