Europeans recount horror, relief
"We had just rented umbrellas at the beach. When we started undressing to get into the water, we suddenly saw the sea receding some 200 meters (600 feet)," Yiannis Kannelopoulos, a Greek tourist told Greek state television NET after arriving back in Athens early Tuesday with 150 compatriots.
"Many people then followed the waters to collect oysters and stranded fish flopping about in the sand. Some of us did the same, but I started wondering if there wasn't a tidal wave coming because I had heard about the earthquake.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "Then the first wave came, it was about 4.5 meters tall and we started running."
Liliane Hermann described the mayhem saying there was a mass scramble.
She said there were several wounded among the some 260 tourists on her flight home, many of them wearing only the swimsuits and towels they had on when the walls of water began to hit.
The first Dutch survivors evacuated from the devastation also arrived home Tuesday, some wearing only summer clothes and flip-flops in the near-freezing weather after losing all else when the tidal waves hit their resorts.
"Everything was washed away," Nico Poons was quoted by ANP news agency as saying after returning from Thailand. "Walls crumbled, electricity went. People were hanging from trees and children were dragged into the water," he said.
"I didn't know where to go," his wife said.
"We fled into the bush. My husband grabbed our son and luckily we were picked up soon by a truck. The people there were very nice to us," she said.
Another group of six flew in from Sri Lanka, including Wout and Mia van der Heyden who said they felt fortunate to have escaped.
"Normally we would already have been at the beach at that time, but that morning we were just having breakfast," they said.
The two were also picked up by a local lorry and taken in at a Buddhist monastery.
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