Original subtitles

-On Christmas Day, 2004,

I was working the overnight shift in charge

of CNN's international desk.

So, I come up the escalators into the main CNN newsroom,

and it was all almost completely empty.

Everybody knows that Christmas Day is one of the

quietest days in the news, in the news business.

And I asked my colleague,

"Is there anything going on in the world?"

And she said, "Not really, it's quiet."

She said, "There is a report of an earthquake off

the coast of Sumatra.

Otherwise, well, there's, there's nothing

really going on."

But then the phone rang,

and our New Delhi bureau chief was calling

in from Sri Lanka.

And he said,

"I'm getting reports here of coastal areas

utterly wiped out."

I told him,

"There was a massive earthquake in Indonesia."

And as soon as I got that first call from SAT,

I realize this is, this is really serious.

It had to be a tsunami.

[overlapping foreign chatter]

[♪ theme music playing]

-I was a correspondent in the region,

and I'd been working really hard,

five years without a break, really.

My family was upset,

and to sort of make amends, I said,

"Hey, let's go for a vacation, and let's go to Sri Lanka."

So, we decide to go shopping as a family.

And I notice there's an edginess out in the streets.

Something's not right, that's for sure.

My phone beeped,

and it was from our stringer correspondent

in Sri Lanka and the message was very short,

"Call me, it's urgent."

And he says, "Satinder, strange things are happening.

I'm getting reports from Eastern Sri Lanka...

the opposite side of the island,

that it has been hit by huge waves."

I don't know what's going on,

and I think we need to move.

-I was traveling for six months before I

got to Sri Lanka.

Doing some yoga, loving it.

And, I came with a good feeling,

good vibration, like, new country, new adventures.

I ran down to the beach.

There's the reef and the stones.

But the reef was exposed, and the sea was far behind.

There was shrimps like hopping on the, on the rocks.

And there was no fear.

Should have been, there should have been.

Then there was a shout,

"The sea is coming, the sea is coming."

[rushing water]

[overlapping chatter]

But it looked like it's coming gently.

[rushing water]

[overlapping chatter]

Suddenly, everybody started running.

And then, "Pffft."

[distant screams]

[overlapping chatter]

-We had a TV on in the Operations Room.

We hadn't seen any media reports yet,

but we were thinking, not good, yeah.

[overlapping chatter]

We're doing as much searching as we can do,

whatever we can find data-wise,

media-wise, anything, to try and get a better

grip on this.

By then, we knew that this ocean-crossing tsunami would

probably endanger every country along the

Indian Ocean coast.

And Sri Lanka was in the worst possible position

from the maximum tsunami.

It was the largest rupture in history.

On the order of 1,200 to 1,300 kilometers long,

about the size of the state of California.

And because Sri Lanka was perpendicular to the fault line,

it was broadsided by the tsunami.

Tsunamis will refract.

They will bend around the island,

putting populations on other sides,

far sides of the island, in danger.

We're talking about tremendous damage,

tremendous loss of life,

not just one wave but multiple waves,

and it can often be a subsequent wave

that is stronger.

[rushing water]

[overlapping chatter]

[speaking in foreign language]

[rushing water]

[Sue Mor Ben Zvi] I was underwater and I had no air.

[rushing water]

[metal clang

I remember the feeling of the wave passing on my face

and trying to tear off my nostrils and opening my eyelids,

like immense force.

I was being dragged and my legs were being torn.

[Satinder Bindra] We're driving right along the coast.

And now the crowds have swelled up.

There's thousands of people out on the water,

close to the beach and they're all looking at the sea,

which is very high, it's very rough.

And then I get a call from Galle,

in the south of Sri Lanka.

He's speaking fast and I have to ask him to slow it down.

He said, "There's water in the train station,

there's water in the bus station,

there's water everywhere.

This is a disaster."

All this was happening just miles away from where I was.

And I see from my vantage point that the sea's certainly

come way towards the hotel.

I had to keep my family safe and I said,

"It's time to go up."

-It was a very crowded train.

My mother and I were traveling to my aunt and uncle's farm,

which is the home where my mother grew up.

We were standing shoulder to shoulder with other people.

I'm one of three siblings,

so it's always nice to get some time alone

with with your mother, but also for me,

it was wonderful to see her in her natural environment.

[speaking in foreign language]

We moved to America in the late '80s,

and in America, people will often ask you

where you're from.

So, I've kind of developed this answer of,

"Chicago is home, and then Sri Lanka

is home, home."

So, just what most immigrants do of straddling

their two worlds.

The train stopped.

And the first moments that we really felt that something

was amiss was when the water level from far out

just started getting closer to us.

Water, and it actually entered our train,

and it slowly, kind of crept up your body,

ankles, knees, thighs, waist, and then

the water slowly then receded.

I went out to take a couple of pictures.

The car in front of us had tipped over to its side.

My mother and I debated if we should try to go out and

just swim somewhere,

but looking out from the train car window,

there was no dry land to be seen.

-We could hear screaming start and, again,

the water started at our feet,

rose to our knees, waist, chest, and I think

it was at that point that I realized,

this is different than the first one.

This is not gonna just ebb and go down.

And then, our train car tipped over.

[metal clang and groan]

We were all falling on top of each other,

but submerged underwater.

So, I kicked.

Very likely could have kicked my mother.

And this window that was looking out over the ocean

was now on top.

Then, mercifully, it was open and I’m small enough

that I could pull myself up and out.

I was alive,

and there’s a chance now I can get my mother,

and we could be okay.

Then we started pulling whatever hands were reaching

out from that window, and I just thought we would

eventually get to her.

[sighs]

And, at some point, then the water levels receded.

I found my mother fairly quickly.

So, I tried pushing on her abdomen and

trying to revive her,

and it seemed hopeful because there was water coming

out of her, her mouth.

And then, shortly after, the water turned to blood.

I just didn’t want to hurt her anymore,

to make her bleed, so I stopped.

I took her wedding ring and kissed her,

and I told my Ami that I’ll be back for her,

and then we left.

We left her on the train.

And we went into the waters to try to find some land

to be safe.

[honking]

[overlapping panic chatter]

[Satinder Bindra] The higher we were,

the safer I felt for my family.

And the first thing,

I go up to the balcony, I look out.

There's a small road in front of the hotel,

the sea has crossed the road.

There's a pool nearby.

I see the sea thunder into that pool.

And the adrenaline that I normally have as a

correspondent is now replaced by fear.

I called Eli at CNN's Atlanta Headquarters.

[Eli Fournoy] SAT called in and I realized we needed

to understand the true scale of this tsunami.

We're supposed to be able to tell people what's

going on in a situation, literally of life and death.

And there were only three of us in Atlanta on

the international desk, and it was incredibly difficult

to get accurate information.

We're contacting people on the ground,

we're trying to talk to government officials.

Everything told us that Sri Lanka was the center

of the story.

-Music, cue up the six. Music, we're back, standby--

[Eli Fournoy] So, I put Satinder through to

the control room.

-Standby B, tracking B is next.

-It felt surreal.

Here I am on break,

CNN is in full Breaking News mode.

That's a big moment.

[overlapping chatter]

And I gave the first eyewitness report to the world,

live from the sixth-floor hotel balcony.

[reporter] We're joined on the line from

Colombo by our correspondent, Satinder Bindra.

Satinder.

[Satinder Bindra] Yeah, I'm standing right next

to the coastline here in Colombo.

The sea's moved in very, very quickly and quickly

sucked everything out.

Residents here, obviously, very concerned,

because no one is quite sure...

At this point, I know this is a big story and

the world had to know what was happening.

I pick up the phone and call my bureau in Delhi and

I tell the assignment editor there,

"Pull everybody off their break. We need a full crew.

We need a cameraman.

We've got to get a live presence on this story."

Perhaps more than 100 people there are feared dead.

The officials too are very concerned,

they are monitoring coastal area.

They're telling people that they should leave their homes

and move back.

We are receiving information...

-First thing in the morning,

my neighbor knocked hard on the door.

Came in, asked me to turn on the TV.

So, I did what they said.

[reporter] Bursting through the trees with water headed

inland right behind fleeing tourists.

-I saw the wave.

I saw a big wave and I panicked,

because I knew the wave took my daughter.

I knew it.

She was traveling around Sri Lanka and

I'm a single mother, so I cannot lose her.

She was all my world.

I only wanted to hear her voice.

Only to hear her voice.

[overlapping chatter]

[sirens]

[overlapping chatter]

[overlapping chatter]

[♪ somber music playing]

[♪ somber music playing]

[Satinder Bindra] I take the van that I'd hired for my family.

I drive down the coast towards Galle.

And the force of what happened that morning hits me.

It destroyed everything.

And what I'm seeing is just the tip of the iceberg.

I go into a fishing community and the sea's rushed

onto the land.

And I look up about a kilometer down the coast,

the roads were destroyed, gone.

There was no way you could get from Colombo

to Galle by road.

All communications were down,

and I made the decision that we must try to

get a helicopter into Galle.

[Eli Fournoy] We were realizing that roads and bridges

were gone, telephone lines were knocked down,

and we went for the first several hours thinking that

Sri Lanka was the epicenter of the story.

But then, there was a massive volume of information

that was now flooding in from so many sources.

We started to hear reports from India,

from Malaysia,

the Maldives

and from Thailand

and we were calling everyone in the field.

Everyone in the field was calling in to us,

and we sent everybody to every location that

we could think of.

We, we just had no context for understanding a tsunami

of that size and that, that magnitude.

Nothing like this had ever happened in any

of our lifetimes.

[overlapping foreign chatter]

[overlapping foreign chatter]

[Sue Mor Ben Zvi] I don't remember standing up.

I was broken and I had this deep wound in my leg.

Everything was chaos, chaos.

The local villagers started to gather up everybody

that was still alive.

And they are starting to evacuate us to the hospitals.

I felt really alone.

And I saw a guy with a cellular phone.

And I asked him if I could use the phone and

he said that he would give it to me with pleasure

but there's no lines.

Like, physically, the poles went down.

There's no communication.

And I said, "Let me try."

So, he handed the phone to me.

[speaking in foreign language]

And she answered.

And I go like, "Mommy, I'm fine."

-She was alive.

I lost it. I just lost it.

I was screaming,

I, see her, I was screaming, Sue, Sue.

-And I think the conversation lasted, like, two seconds,

but I was still holding the phone and talking.

[Roni Mor Shorei] I got her back.

I got myself back.

I got life back.

[smooches]

[helicopter rotors]

[Satinder Bindra] We managed to get a helicopter from Colombo.

And then you start coming in towards Galle and

then you can see from the air.

Everything along the coast had been just blown away.

And I remember being told about the train.

Minutes after the train left the last station,

that train station had information that the train was

heading straight into the tsunami.

But there was no cell phone on the train,

and that message couldn't be delivered.

[Eranthie Mendis] There were local people that were

ferrying people away from the train.

I was just numb with shock and grief.

I had made it back to my aunt and uncle.

I just hugged them, they just held me.

[sobs]

So, that's when I was safe... And home.

Home-home.

-What are you doing?

[Eranthie Mendis] There's some beauty of saying "goodbye"

to my my mother when she was so vital and alive.

She was 55 and young and healthy and beautiful.

And, I think I finally understand now, being a mother,

if you get a choice,

you always want your children to survive.

[Satinder Bindra] It's estimated perhaps more than

2,000 people were killed.

[Eranthie Mendis] We had electricity,

so we could watch the news.

-We estimate hundreds died when a train flipped over on

its side and then waves just carried it out towards the sea,

entire rail tracks were ripped out...

[Eranthie Mendis] I realized then how few people

survived that train.

Those odds have brought guilt, joy,

understanding the randomness,

God's plan, however you wanna call it.

Watching the news over the next few days made me realize

how lucky I was alive.

-We're interrupting your regular programming to bring

you some breaking news from ABC News.

The most powerful earthquake in 40 years...

-...triggered giant waves, or tsunamis that...

-...hit without warning at the peak of the holiday season.

-Many of the victims lived outside the range of the

International Tsunami Warning System.

Mary Peterson has the latest on a disaster

whose full dimensions have yet to be...

[Barry Hirshorn] I remember hearing how these trains

in Sri Lanka had been knocked off their rails.

That was just mind-blowing, you know?

I called my wife.

She started to cry,

and I remember crying as well.

So, it was tough.

That was a big moment.

As it dawned on us that Sri Lanka

had been devastated,

we were thinking, what more can we do?

What can we do?

And then the phone rang,

I picked it up and it was the US State Department.

I explained to them,

this is an ocean-wide danger.

You've got relationships and contact points and

all the things we need to warn the coasts.

We could see that the next large population that was in

danger was the east coast of Africa.

I said, "Please get the message out to the coastal populations."

[speaking in foreign language]

[Barry Hirshorn] Kenya got the word ahead of the wave

and they did evacuate.

We felt like as least we did something.

At least hopefully we saved somebody.

[Eli Fournoy] Millions of people were waking up to news

of an incredible tragedy.

But quickly, incredible stories of survival started to emerge,

and our coverage shifted to the rescue effort.

And the desperate search of families clinging onto

the hope that their loved ones survived.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.