As the earth rumbled and the raging waves sucked tens of thousands of people to their watery death, Wendy Woolner looked up to see hell unravelling in front of her eyes.
“I remember a woman hanging on to a tree with a child in her arms when the first drift of water came in. I very much doubt they survived.
“I remember finding my mum and then at some point being airlifted away on a helicopter,” recalls the 36-year-old Maltese woman.
It is 10 years since the Asia tsunami decimated thousands of families the day after Christmas. A decade has passed since Wendy invited her sister, Charmaine, and mother, Nancy, to visit her on the island of Phi Phi, where she was temporarily living.
It was like Chinese water torture as I wanted to stay but couldn’t
But the family reunification turned into a nightmare that haunts her to this day. A seaquake unleashed a series of deadly waves up to 30 metres high that devastated the shores of 15 countries, killing more than 230,000 people and displacing more than 1.6 million. It was the most devastating natural disaster in recent memory.
Nancy Woolner died of her injuries on January 10, 2005, the only Maltese victim of the disaster.
The physical scars Wendy and her sister sustained that day are still visible, albeit “just a bit faded”. And while their memories of that fateful day are sketchy, they remain too brutal to recall for the Woolner family. On Boxing Day, Nancy realised the seawater was rising fast and quickly alerted her daughters.
The next few minutes would be the most terrifying the Woolners would ever experience. A huge wave slammed their hut, smashing it to a pulp.
Wendy felt her chin slammed back with the impact of the waves, cracking four ribs. Nancy was thrown onto a concrete block, suffering horrific injuries.
Charmaine found herself suffocating, drowning in the dark, being hit by the debris. Suffering a broken ankle, Charmaine was also lost in the middle of nowhere for days, camouflaged by the rubble. The next few hours were an obstacle race to stay alive through a horror show of corpse-filled waters.
“It was like Chinese torture, as I wanted to stay on the island and look for my sister, but at the same time I couldn’t do so because of my injuries. I also didn’t want to leave my mum alone,” Wendy tells The Sunday Times of Malta.
Suffering from serious chest and leg injuries, Wendy summoned all the strength she could muster to carry her mother to higher ground.
The three women were eventually airlifted to Germany for treatment. Nancy had suffered massive injuries to her body, but it was a mysterious virus that would eventually kill her. Ten years later, what is the biggest fear that still haunts Wendy?
“Waves!” is her immediate reply, a tough compromise for a woman who enjoys a love affair with the sea. “It’s a love-hate relationship. I still love the beach and the sea. I don’t like choppy water, however. I feel I have no control over it and know its immense power.”
In an interview with Pink magazine 10 years ago, Wendy said she hoped she would pluck up the courage to go diving again one day.
Though she still snorkels, she says she has gone diving once, only reluctantly, with an instructor who happened to be a friend of hers. Since the disaster struck, she visited the south Pacific islands once, for a memorial in 2005.
“Charmaine did not want to come, so I went with my friend Ally. There were lots of tears that poor Ally had to endure.”
Wendy, who now lives in Oman, Jordan, is determined to move on from the fateful Boxing Day tsunami which ruined the lives of millions. “Life goes on. I prefer the ‘not to think about it’ method generally,” she says.
“Losing Mum has been a big impact of course but she is always with me... watching over me and my sister, and my little nephew too now. I just wish she was still here to be a part of it.”