A tsunami clip I saw I just saw a video clip of the tsunami which occured at the Gurney Beach, Penang. It was very short, around, say 1 minute. I think the video was captured using someone's mobile phone. The clip was short and wasn't clear.

The clip filmed the waves coming toward the beach, and the beach had many people, strolling, and most of them were just lingering around,watching the waves. In the background, you can hear people's voices extremely clearly, speaking in Cantonese.

"Wah.... the waves are huge... Wahhhh... really huge...."

And when the waves crashed onto the beach... you can hear them laughing in the backgound... "hahahahaha...."

And when they start to realise what was happening, they were screaming "RUNNNN..."

Can you imagine that? They were laughing when the tsunami hit them. I didn't know what to think when I saw the clip. I thought their reaction was... ridiculous. Yet, believable.

Am I contradicting myself?

I heard the reason why the death toll was so high was because many of them went to the beach itself to check out why the sea was so noisy that day. And apparently, many were mesmerised by the huge waves coming their way. Which was why they were still in holiday mood when the tsunami came and swept them away.

Yet, I don't blame them because if I were there, I think I might have done and felt exactly the same way. I mean, we arn't Japanese. We have never felt tsunami attacks before. Never experienced it. How would we know the difference between a tidal wave and an innocent little normal wave from afar? I bet half these people probably never even heard of the term "tsunami" before this. So how can we blame them for their ignorance? Or rather, our ignorance.

I can only hope all the people in the clip are safe and sound at home now.  ¶ Friday, December 31, 2004 0 comments