December 26, 2004. One of the unforgettable days in life. The day the deadly "tsunami" struck. #Tsunami was a strange term for me and I didn't exactly know what actually happened.
I was returning from a two-day trip to Araku with my wife and son and my Idea mobile remained switched off as we were in the "non-coverage area". As we reached closer to Visakhapatnam, I switched on my phone only to find at least 10 messages and as many "missed calls". My editor, news editor, a couple of colleagues, my parents and cousinChandrasekhar....all tried to reach me on the phone.
As I was about to call back my editor in Hyderabad, there came a call from my cousin who started enquiring about our whereabouts and condition. "What happened," I curiously asked him.
"Vizag lo samudram pongipoyindanta..." he told me.
The first moment, my thought ran to our guest house right on the other side of Bay of Bengal in Vizag. "Are our belongings (dresses only) safe," I wondered.
He then broke the news to me and I immediately called my editor back. He told me about the grave tragedy and informed that Krishna district, my station of work at that time, was the worst hit. "Cancel your holidays and return to Vijayawada immediately," he directed.
The scene looked normal as we reached the beach road guest house and there was no sign of any sea surge.
I dropped my wife and son in the guest house, asked the driver to fetch food for them and I rushed to a nearby Internet cafe to do my job -- of filing news reports about the devastation in Machilipatnam.
I called my best colleague Ramesh over phone and he gave me most inputs. I then called Prabhakar Reddy sir, Collector of Krishna district at the time, and -- despite being so busy with the rescue and relief operations -- he spoke to me for a few minutes and gave a detailed account of the tragedy at Manginapudi beach where about 15 people were killed. Manginapudi beach, where many facilities were created for tourists a couple of years before 2004, stood destroyed on December 26.
I remember speaking to Vijayawada Deputy Mayor Musunuri Subba Rao over phone. He had a miraculous escape though one of his friends got washed away in Phuket in Thailand on the fateful day. His account helped me file one more story.
In the meantime, I also spoke to the then Joint Collector of Krishna, P Sampath Kumar, who too provided certain inputs about the natural disaster. Importantly, he said it was a "tsunami" and that was the first time I ever heard the word. Sampath was well-versed in geography and geology and so knew about tsunami.
In my initial reports, I didn't use the word tsunami and just said "high tidal waves" and the like.
Thanks to Prabhakar Reddy sir, Sampath, Ramesh, I filed six reports -- sitting in Vizag -- on the tragedy and finished my work by 6 or 6.30 pm that day. 'ThumsUp' kept me going, though I could not have proper lunch, as I gulped a couple of bottles of the drink while typing my reports.
I returned to the guest house, where wife and son (then just 3-year-old) remained anxious, and refreshed myself. We then went for a walk on the beach road where there still were curious people while the district administration, led by Praveen Prakash, was busy with its job of overseeing rescue and relief operations. There was a sea surge in the fishing harbour area in Vizag and no other major damage but an exaggerated television channel portrayed a different story, causing panic.
That night, me, wife and son went to our favourite Palm Beach hotel and had a candle-light dinner under the sky, just a few meters from the Bay of Bengal that thankfully was not ferocious in Vizag.
The next morning, we caught the first available train and returned to our base Vijayawada.
And, I continued my work from there, as usual.
I was returning from a two-day trip to Araku with my wife and son and my Idea mobile remained switched off as we were in the "non-coverage area". As we reached closer to Visakhapatnam, I switched on my phone only to find at least 10 messages and as many "missed calls". My editor, news editor, a couple of colleagues, my parents and cousinChandrasekhar....all tried to reach me on the phone.
As I was about to call back my editor in Hyderabad, there came a call from my cousin who started enquiring about our whereabouts and condition. "What happened," I curiously asked him.
"Vizag lo samudram pongipoyindanta..." he told me.
The first moment, my thought ran to our guest house right on the other side of Bay of Bengal in Vizag. "Are our belongings (dresses only) safe," I wondered.
He then broke the news to me and I immediately called my editor back. He told me about the grave tragedy and informed that Krishna district, my station of work at that time, was the worst hit. "Cancel your holidays and return to Vijayawada immediately," he directed.
The scene looked normal as we reached the beach road guest house and there was no sign of any sea surge.
I dropped my wife and son in the guest house, asked the driver to fetch food for them and I rushed to a nearby Internet cafe to do my job -- of filing news reports about the devastation in Machilipatnam.
I called my best colleague Ramesh over phone and he gave me most inputs. I then called Prabhakar Reddy sir, Collector of Krishna district at the time, and -- despite being so busy with the rescue and relief operations -- he spoke to me for a few minutes and gave a detailed account of the tragedy at Manginapudi beach where about 15 people were killed. Manginapudi beach, where many facilities were created for tourists a couple of years before 2004, stood destroyed on December 26.
I remember speaking to Vijayawada Deputy Mayor Musunuri Subba Rao over phone. He had a miraculous escape though one of his friends got washed away in Phuket in Thailand on the fateful day. His account helped me file one more story.
In the meantime, I also spoke to the then Joint Collector of Krishna, P Sampath Kumar, who too provided certain inputs about the natural disaster. Importantly, he said it was a "tsunami" and that was the first time I ever heard the word. Sampath was well-versed in geography and geology and so knew about tsunami.
In my initial reports, I didn't use the word tsunami and just said "high tidal waves" and the like.
Thanks to Prabhakar Reddy sir, Sampath, Ramesh, I filed six reports -- sitting in Vizag -- on the tragedy and finished my work by 6 or 6.30 pm that day. 'ThumsUp' kept me going, though I could not have proper lunch, as I gulped a couple of bottles of the drink while typing my reports.
I returned to the guest house, where wife and son (then just 3-year-old) remained anxious, and refreshed myself. We then went for a walk on the beach road where there still were curious people while the district administration, led by Praveen Prakash, was busy with its job of overseeing rescue and relief operations. There was a sea surge in the fishing harbour area in Vizag and no other major damage but an exaggerated television channel portrayed a different story, causing panic.
That night, me, wife and son went to our favourite Palm Beach hotel and had a candle-light dinner under the sky, just a few meters from the Bay of Bengal that thankfully was not ferocious in Vizag.
The next morning, we caught the first available train and returned to our base Vijayawada.
And, I continued my work from there, as usual.