Amanda Balomaga

11/11/10
Erich Krauss gripping work, Wave of Destruction, illustrates the horrific December 2004 tsunami
through the perspective of those living in the coastal town of Nan Khem, Thailand. This piece of
nonfiction covers in detail the stories of four families- Wichien and Nang, Wimon and Watcharee, Nang
and Tueng, and Lek and Puek.- touching on how each family was formed, the events that took place
when the tsunami hit, and the strife they experienced in the aftermath.
Wichien left his hometown to live in Nan Khem when he was 16 in order to find a job to help
support his mother and 11 siblings. Wichien had very little attraction to the town, which was no place
for honest people who didnt drink, smoke, gamble, or have an itch for bar girls.(5) At age 27, he met
Nang, who worked in a small restaurant near the shore. Nang had lived a difficult childhood; at age 13
she worked for a wealthy family that physically beat and abused her. After a year and half, she escaped
the household with the help of a friend. When she turned 17, Nang moved to Nan Khem because she
wanted to see the sea, sparkling blue and stretching as far as the eye could see.(12) She got a job in a
restaurant, where she met Wichien who she eventually married. When the tsunami hit, Wichien was
away from Nan Khem and Nang was in her house. She ran and was able to get on a truck headed for the
freeway, when a wave came in. While she was submerged, her leg caught on something sharp, and
when she forced her leg out, she received a deep injury. Fortunately, Nang managed to grab hold and
climb up a coconut tree, which put her out of harms way from any more debris.
Wimon led a life filled with misfortune; his home was destroyed when he was young by a
monsoon, he witnessed hit men murder his step father, and he lost his house five times to fire. However,
these horrible experiences made him a stronger person. He worked selling fresh fruit a the market
where he met Watcharee. Although reluctant at first because he didnt yet own a house, he married her.
Watcharee eventually gave birth to two girls, Film and Frame. When the tsunami struck on December 26,
2004, Wimon was on the ocean. He noticed something wrong when he looked into the water and could
Amanda Balomaga
11/11/10
see the ocean floor. And then the giant waves began to form. While other boats and their crews were
destroyed, Wimon was able to maneuver his boat sideways along the waves, which saved his boat as
well as his life and allowed him to return to the coast when the waves subsided. His wife Watcharee was
home with Film and Frame when the tsunami hit. She lost both in the current and later found Frame.
However, Film was not as lucky.
Headstrong and defiant, Dang is my personal favorite. She grew up knowing what it meant to
starve- everyday she would have two spoonfuls or rice and a glass of the water the rice had been cooked
in, which her mother would call milk. She was sent away to work in a small salon shop when she was
11 where she was abused, given little food, and forced to work 16 hours a day. After two years, she got
in a fight with her boss and walked out. She took a waitress job, but was thrown out when she smashed
a bottle over the head of a customer who had molested her. Dang met Tueng when she was working at
another restaurant. After the two were married, they had a baby boy named Arthorn and a daughter
named Kwan. Dang was in the Bang Sak Princess Resort when the wave reached Thailands shore. Like
most others, she ran but was quickly overtaken by the tidal waves. Luckily, she was able to get on the
roof of the resort. After the fourth wave, she ran all the way to Nan Khem. However, when she arrived, a
policeman stopped her and said, Dont go down there. There is nothing left of Nam Khem. Everyone is
dead.(158)
Lek met Puek while she was working at a fish market. Puek was a rebel who had numerous
tattoos and enjoyed sleeping with prostitutes. One day, Puek kidnapped Lek, lying to her parents that
they would be going to the fair. They were married since Lek knew her parents would no longer take her
back. Puek eventually apologized to Leks parents for his actions. Lek gave birth to a daughter named
Chomphu and a son named Bang. Puek later became captain of a fishing ship and his success led him to
fame and fortune. However, unfortunate events followed his success; Puek was permanently blinded in
Amanda Balomaga
11/11/10
a serious car crash, their fishing business went in debt, and their son Bang was killed in a freak accident.
In order to start anew, Lek and Puek decided to learn traditional Thai massage and later, earned jobs
giving massages at a beach on Kho Khao Island. The morning of the tsunami they were on the beach
giving massages to German tourists. When the wave started coming in, the two ran for it and were able
to get on the back of a truck which drove up to Khao Phrapichai Mountain, the highest point on Kho
Khao Island.
In the aftermath, hospitals were overrun with tsunami victims. They were low on supplies and
doctors and nurses. Nang struggled to receive treatment for her leg injury. Wichien had gone home to
pick up his savings, only to find that his money had been pilfered. People hunted for their missing loved
ones. Others worked to identify bodies, a task that proved difficult since looters were stealing wallets
from the dead which could provide identification. After searching all over Nan Khem, Dang and her
family found the body of Kwan. Since most everyones homes had been demolished in the tsunami, they
lived in temporary housing camps, where they were to be given donations and food. However, many
people didnt receive what they needed because of the sick corruption that went around.
Wave of Destruction was very accurate in correlation to what we have learned in our class. The
tsunami was caused by a subduction zone earthquake, one of the main causes of tsunamis. In this case,
the India Plate dive dramatically under the Burma plate, producing an earthquake with a magnitude of
9.15 on the Richter scale.(92) . Many of the signs and warnings for tsunamis were described in the
novel. When Lek and Puek wake up that morning, they find a huge crack in their wall, most likely a result
of the earthquake and the shifting plates. When Wimon was out fishing the morning of the, he realized
that he saw rocks below the surface. Even when the water was crystal clear he couldnt see the bottom,
not this far out.(91) The water was receding, which explains why the water level was going down. This
was also apparent when Dang was at the Bang Sak Princess Resort. From her perspective, The tide had
Amanda Balomaga
11/11/10
gone out, exposing rocks and leaving fish to flop on the sand.(130) This phenomenon was a huge
warning sign that, if recognized, could have prevented the deaths of many. However several people like
Dang had never seen anything like it. Her friends were intrigued and took out their cell phones to take
pictures. Although there was a several hour gap between the earthquake and the tsunami, nearly all
victims caught off guard. This is mostly due to the fact that there was no existing tsunami tsunami
warning systems in the Indian Ocean. Lek and Pueks boss, Rinphanit was the only person noted in the
book to receive a warning, via cellphone. However, he currently had over 200 employees on duty, as
well as 80 rooms filled with guests. He never imagined that anything like this could happen, so there was
no contingency plan. (109) In addition, he couldnt speak any other language but Thai, so when he
attempted to round up tourists on the beach, nobody understood him. For most, the only warning they
received was the screaming people running away from the beach. When Watcharee first heard people
screaming that a massive wave was coming in, she thought people were speaking figuratively and didnt
react instantly since she, had lived on Nan Khem for 15 years and never before had there been a
massive wave. Another way the book reflected class material was the description of the waves that
came in. Nang describes the water as a jet black wave(121), jet black because of all the dirt, debris,
and muck picked up in the streets. All the bacteria in the water resulted in horrible infections for those
who received even the smallest cuts. In contrast to how tsunamis are depicted in movies- as one giant
wave- real tsunamis are a series of waves. In the case of the 2004 Tsunami, there were about four
massive waves that hit the coast. From a distance, Watcharee searched for her daughters bodies
beneath the mud after the first wave receded, and then a second wave, twice the size of the last, came
sweeping through Nam tsunami Khem.(99) After the tsunami, it was found that 1/3 of the dead were
children, a point that is repeatedly brought to attention during the course of the novel . Those who
didnt die of drowning were killed by debris. When Dang reached her neighborhood, she found people
tangled up and embedded in a barbed wire fence. One of her aunties had had her face sliced off by a
Amanda Balomaga
11/11/10
sheet of aluminum. The novel also reflects the class by describing the search for lost ones with Dang
trying to find Kwan, searching through mud, rubble, and mass graves. The death toll was too high for
separate graves, so the communities turned to mass graves and as the bodies decayed, they became
harder to recognize. This novel as opposed to the documentary we viewed in class, depicted the impact
on both locals and tourists, with emphasis on the locals. The documentary focused solely on the tourists
affected by the tsunami. With the novel, we gained insight to how locals viewed the tourists, which I
found quite intriguing. Many were angry when they saw foreigners getting treatment before the Thai.
However, from Puek and Leks perspective, The foreigners were good people; they just werent built
tough like the Thai.(197)
I enjoyed this novel; it was beautifully written and well organized. Krauss depicts the lives of
these families so well that it seems more fiction than nonfiction. He portrays these heart wrenching
episodes with such detail, creating a strong appeal to ethos; sympathy for the difficult lives these people
led and sorrow for all those who lost their lives.