Bangkok--Jan 14--Francom Asia
This region has seen several disasters, natural and man-made, but the sheer numbers of those affected makes this possibly the biggest story I will ever cover. On one of the islands we visited the extent of the disaster was so widespread that, according to officials, one in four people had been killed, seriously injured or had lost immediate family.
The images I will never forget are the feeling of guilt you begin to recognize in so many fathers and mothers who have told me how they held onto their children with all their strength but the waves just tore their kids from their arms. Some kept saying how they were all running for their lives, their son or daughter with them before they then disappeared. They keep wanting you to reassure them they did all they could to save their children and they’re haunted by the thought that they could have done more.
One man told how he and his neighbours went back to find their children after the wave left. It was heartbreaking to hear him describe how they went around the beach pulling the bodies of children out of the mud, wiping their face so as to identify them and then burying them back in the same spot. Even though I didn’t see it myself, it was plain from the man’s face what a toll it had taken on him.
Most people ask me if it’s hard seeing the bodies, especially the bodies of children. But for me what is hard is seeing the people left behind, those that are mourning the dead. It’s the faces of parents whose children and world are gone, it’s the images of confused children not knowing what comes next. There’s no way of shielding or sheltering the children from the tragedy of what’s happened and you can see how frightened they are. Above all, it’s the immense dignity of people who have lost every last belonging but are still prepared to talk to us and share their stories.
What has surprised me covering these stories about children is their resilience. Many of them are now in evacuee camps making friends, running around, playing games and getting through circumstances they are totally unused to. One of the most emotional moments for me was not about a sad child but a happy one. We had been working on about two hours of sleep that day, and were walking pretty numb through a camp, hearing people’s stories of loss, horror and death. Suddenly a little twelve-year-old girl came bouncing up to me, shook my hand, and wished me a happy New Year. It just seemed so ridiculous that this girl, whose father was missing, and was living in donated clothes on a bare floor under the sky, was somehow comforting me, someone who had a house and family to go home to. I walked away with a huge lump in my throat.
If I had to choose the one story that really touched my heart, it is that of a man, his wife, and their three little daughters. The night before the tsunami struck they had taken their girls aged 5, 3, and 1 to visit their grandparents. As the two younger ones fell asleep, the grandparents convinced the parents to let them to stay in their house. When the tsunami hit, the man rushed his wife and child to safety and got on a rescue plane off the island. When we met them they had no news of their children and other relatives. The man was going from relief camp to relief camp and every time another planeload arrived, he would look for neighbours and friends in the desperate hope that his girls would somehow turn up.
As our camera was rolling he finally saw his sister in law and this man who had kept his composure just broke down. It was a very emotional moment. My cameraman and I had tears in our eyes. She told him that his children were safe, but were trapped in a forest with other relatives. His immediate thought was they must be starving. We tried to send out messages through the army to bring the girls over, but the wait was unbearable. The couple couldn’t eat they said, knowing that theit two children were most probably going hungry.
A journalist’s traditional neutrality gets blurred in these situations because there’s no question as to whose side you are on. It isn’t easy to stay immune seeing people all day, and sharing with their losses. Their pain very quickly becomes your pain. I think any parent knows that knot in their stomach when they think a child is lost or has been out too late and you suddenly panic. Then you imagine the sheer hysteria of a parent who can’t find their kids amongst all the devastation, who can’t comfort a terrified child, and it hits you very hard. I have two daughters, and when I heard about the family who had left their kids to stay over at their grandparents, and I thought how normal that was, I do that all the time, never dreaming this could happen. You want to just forget your story, turn off the camera, and comfort them. At that moment I also just wanted to go home and just give my own children a big hug. End.