They clung to debris as tsunami swept over

PHUKET: Up to his chest in raging water, Boree Carlsson clung desperately to a pillar in a hotel lobby. ‘I just couldn’t believe what was happening before my eyes,’’ said Carlsson, 45-year-old Swede who had rushed into a hotel as the waves rolled into Phuket’s Patong Beach. Carlsson had to wrap himself around a pillar to avoid being swept away. ‘‘The water was up to my chest and I was holding onto my friend’s hand because he can’t swim.’’

HONG KONG: The tsunami sucked a Hong Kong couple out of their hotel room in Phuket and they floated on a mattress and a piece of wood until rescuers came for them seven hours later. ‘‘Before I spotted that mattress, I thought I was going to die because I could not go on any more with my injuries and tiredness,’’ said Leung Wai-kei, who escaped with torn ligaments in her foot. Her husband, who clung to a piece of wood, said the currents dragged them down and spat them to the surface repeatedly. ‘‘I was constantly calling out his full name because I thought other men would think I was calling them and answer if I just yelled ‘hubby’,’’ said Leung.

COLOMBO: Ruppert Goachim from Germany was tossed around when the wave crashed into his hotel at Sri Lanka’s coastal Bentota resort. ‘‘We were in the room when the big wave came, it broke the window and door. The door was jammed. We were trapped…I thought I would drown. I floated to the main gate for 10 minutes and then held onto a tree,’’ said Goachim, who later united with his wife at a relief centre.

TAIPEI: A six-year-old girl from Taiwan, Yeh Chia-Ni, vacationing with her parents in Phi Phi island clung to a coconut tree for more than 20 hours to escape the waves. ‘‘I didn’t know how long I waited there but it was a long time…I was thinking my daddy and mommy would come and rescue me,’’ the girl said. Her mother is one of two people from Taiwan missing in Thailand. ‘‘I am not very strong. Without water to drink, I had even less strength,’’ said Yeh, whose arms and legs were injured .

BANGKOK: Four-year-old Vathanyu Pha-Opas was reunited with his parents after being stranded in a tree in southern Thailand without food and water for more than two days. ‘‘It is a miracle that he is alive and still asks for sweets and biscuits. I don’t know how he managed to survive with only minor bruises and some mosquito bites,’’ said his father. —Agencies