Exactly five years ago, on the morning after Christmas, an earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra. With a magnitude surpassing 9.1, it was one of the mightiest quakes on record. It spurred a series of tsunamis that devastated parts of Asia and Africa, and it killed at least 230,000 people. Jerry and I had just spent a month in Sri Lanka, one of the hardest-hit countries. When we heard the news, we shifted our holiday plans and traveled to Phuket, in southern Thailand, to cover the aftermath. What follows is an essay based on my journal notes from our month of travels along Sri Lanka’s edges, before Mother Nature altered the coastline forever. It’s the second in a two-part series. The first, a personal essay about reporting on the tsunami from Thailand, ran yesterday. Read more.
Posts Tagged ‘Asian tsunami’
Remembering the Tsunami: Part II
Sunday, December 27th, 2009Remembering the Tsunami: Part I
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
Exactly five years ago, on the morning after Christmas, an earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra. With a magnitude surpassing 9.1, it was one of the mightiest quakes on record. It spurred a series of tsunamis that devastated parts of Asia and Africa, and it killed at least 230,000 people. Jerry and I had just spent a month in Sri Lanka, one of the hardest-hit countries. When we heard the news, we shifted our holiday plans and traveled to Phuket, in southern Thailand, to cover the aftermath. What follows is a personal essay I wrote about this reporting job. It’s the first in a two-part series. Tomorrow, I will post an essay based on my journal notes from a month of travels along Sri Lanka’s edges, before Mother Nature altered the coastline forever. Read more.