Tsunami survivor recalls ordeal

Alexandra woman Ngaire Woodward is in Dunstan Hospital recovering from a broken pelvis she sustained in last month's Samoan tsunami while there on holiday with Auckland friend Jill Barron. In an exclusive interview, News reporter Lee Jamieson talks with Mrs Woodward about her experience.

The night before the tsunami in Samoa, Ngaire Woodward was walking along the beachfront to the fale where they were staying, only metres from the sea, and she said to her companion, Jill Barron, "the sea's angry tonight".

Mrs Woodward and Mrs Barron had gone to Samoa for a reunion and to celebrate Mrs Woodward's 60th birthday.

They arrived in Apia a week before an estimated magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the area triggered a tsunami, killing about 190 people, including eight New Zealanders.

On the night of the tsunami, it was their first evening at Litia Sini Beach Resort on the South Coast of Upolu Island at the white sand beach and lagoon in Lalomanu village.

They were all asleep in the thatched roof abode of the fale on mattresses on the floor when they were woken by the submarine earthquake at about 6.45am.

"The whole earth was shaking and it was really going to town, we were rolling around . . . and having a bit of a giggle.

"I was still in my nightie and my knickers."

The other two had gone out to look at the beach.

"Then it dawned on me, it's not a good place to be, in a fale in an earthquake.

"I said to Jill, `that wave's going to come over the fale'. You could see it coming but there was another.

"It wasn't a big wave and there was another one on top of it and another one on top of that, right through the fale.

"It was a big wall - then you were among it, struggling."

Each time Mrs Woodward surfaced, another wave dumped her back under.

"It must have been deep at times because I was swimming, so it had to be way above my head."

She was swimming for her life.

"At least you could see where it [the surface] was lighter - because you knew you could get more air . . . once you took that gulp of air, it was okay."

Pieces of broken timber, car bodies, fridges, pots and pans were floating about her in the water.

"I was trying to get myself to the top.

"I would have gone under three or four times - things were breaking and crashing. "It was a . . . cross between a washing machine and a concrete mixer. . .

The only thing you could do was to grab something solid - eventually I got my arms around a coconut palm and hung on."

Mrs Woodward has no idea how long she was in the water - only that the waves came about 20 minutes after the earthquake.

Amid the confusion, she heard Mrs Barron calling out to her to climb up a nearby hill.

"I knew my time wasn't up - I knew as soon as I got out of the water."

They struggled to the top of the hill battered and bruised, Mrs Woodward going in and out of consciousness and people were helping to push her up.

They reached the top of the hill along with about 100 other people, only to find a cliff.

"We couldn't get up the cliff any further - we had to walk back down and walk over the devastation. One thing that stuck in my mind was the pigs, the pigs were all walking back down the hill - they must know it's over."

People kept saying to climb up higher because there could be another wave and they were climbing another hill behind the village.

"Most of us had no clothes left. My girlfriend had no pants on. We must have been a bit of a giggle - big boobs and backsides trying to climb a hill.

"My heart went out to the villagers. It made me feel very humble - they lost a lot of their families, as well. They hadn't had anything like that for 100 years."

She saw the bodies of the village chief and his sister being carried up the hill and people wearing masks to bear the smell of decomposing bodies.

"If it had happened in the night instead . . . we would have all died."

When Mrs Woodward was unable to walk, a wheelchair had appeared amid the devastated remote village.

A New Zealander who had been searching on the beach for his suitcases and belongings came up to them.

"He said, `you know, I've found all these bank cards, they were just in a wee circle in the sand and they all belong to the same person, Ngaire Woodward', and I said, `that's me'.

"The following day, when I was in the hospital, my passport appeared - it makes you think about material things: material things don't matter."

Mrs Woodward's pelvis is broken in four places and Mrs Barron had a huge gash in her leg but had no broken bones, and stayed at the New Zealand High Commission in Apia until they flew out to New Zealand.

"I wouldn't want this to happen again . . . I'm alive and I'm obviously alive for a reason. I haven't quite worked it out, yet. Too many things happened that were odd. So Jill and I ring each other every day and we're starting to write down what happened."

If another earthquake happens, "I don't think that will worry me too much as long as I'm not by the sea".

Her husband Mike and her four children, along with two of her six grandchildren, were there to greet her when she arrived in Auckland on October 3.

She has been in Dunstan Hospital since October 7 and hopes to return home soon.