1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:03,880 Speaker 1: The Boxing Day tsunami claimed over two hundred and thirty 2 00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:06,720 Speaker 1: thousand lives. It's something still I still can't get my 3 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:09,760 Speaker 1: head around. It across fourteen countries and two continents and 4 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:13,440 Speaker 1: left one point seven million people displaced. And this year 5 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:17,119 Speaker 1: it will have been twenty years. Ray Martin is at 6 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:20,000 Speaker 1: the helm of the documentary marking the Tsunami twenty years 7 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:22,239 Speaker 1: on this Sunday at seven pm on Channel nine and 8 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:26,279 Speaker 1: nine now and he's with us now. Good morning, Ray, Welcome. 9 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:29,040 Speaker 2: Morning leave and morning clearsy. I can't believe either when 10 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:31,760 Speaker 2: someone asked me to do it this. I went there 11 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:33,960 Speaker 2: twenty years ago and I'd have thought it was ten years, 12 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:35,040 Speaker 2: maybe fifteen year. 13 00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:40,279 Speaker 1: Twenty years incredible, Ray, You've obviously seen a lot in 14 00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:44,800 Speaker 1: your long and illustrious career, but could there was I mean, 15 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:48,239 Speaker 1: was there anything that could prepare you for what you 16 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:52,040 Speaker 1: arrived to at Bandarache one of the worst hit spots. 17 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:54,279 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the epic center of that of the 18 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:58,120 Speaker 2: Nothing could have covered wars and civil wars, and natural 19 00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:01,560 Speaker 2: disasters from the volcanoes and and droughts and floods in India, 20 00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 2: but nothing like this. I remember saying to fell a 21 00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:05,840 Speaker 2: young through that I had with me when I went up. 22 00:01:05,959 --> 00:01:07,679 Speaker 2: This is probably the worst thing I've ever seen. Well, 23 00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:10,000 Speaker 2: it was worse than that. It was just way beyond 24 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:13,680 Speaker 2: you know. Someone suggested that when that wave hit vander 25 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:16,600 Speaker 2: Archa it was about ten times the impact of the 26 00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:19,600 Speaker 2: atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshia w back in World 27 00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:23,600 Speaker 2: War two. Was that devastrating and these people were simply 28 00:01:23,680 --> 00:01:26,600 Speaker 2: just going back their fairly simple business when it hit. 29 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:29,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, ray Is there any way to describe I mean, 30 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:31,520 Speaker 3: you saw, you know, the aftermath. Anyway to describe the 31 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:33,680 Speaker 3: fear of the citizens with that much water coming through 32 00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:35,480 Speaker 3: so quickly, Well, we got. 33 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:37,880 Speaker 2: Them some of the in the documentary there was their 34 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,200 Speaker 2: footage from tourists in Sri Lanka and also entirely they 35 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:44,280 Speaker 2: had their cameras so they recorded. But I don't think 36 00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 2: anyone really recorded the wave when it came as short 37 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,560 Speaker 2: as to say, the epicenter was in Vandaracha in northern Indonesia. 38 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:52,720 Speaker 2: But so when we got there it was almost though 39 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:56,480 Speaker 2: in shock, but still the extraordinary, I mean to describe 40 00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:58,480 Speaker 2: it quickly would be that, you know, for three hundred 41 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:01,120 Speaker 2: and sixty degrees around wherever you stood, there was just 42 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,200 Speaker 2: total devastation. There was barely a building standing. Some of 43 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:08,000 Speaker 2: the older, stronger buildings had survived, but they were still 44 00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:11,680 Speaker 2: belted about. But beyond that was I mean, everywhere I 45 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:14,080 Speaker 2: looked there were flags. The first day we arrived, and 46 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:16,799 Speaker 2: the flags on flagpoles, the Indonesian flags, these red and 47 00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:19,440 Speaker 2: white flags, and I thought, well, it's a bit gingeristic, 48 00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:21,040 Speaker 2: why would they put flags in It turned out to 49 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:22,840 Speaker 2: be everywhere there's a flag, there was a dead body, 50 00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:26,280 Speaker 2: and in terms of the rubble and so there would 51 00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:28,760 Speaker 2: have been hundreds of these around them, apart from those 52 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:31,600 Speaker 2: that recovered. And yet people you'd meet and they'd see 53 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:34,760 Speaker 2: we were Westerners, and they'd see our cameras and they'd 54 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:36,760 Speaker 2: sort of want to greet us and shake hands and 55 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:39,639 Speaker 2: share their rice with us, and we'd think they must 56 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:41,320 Speaker 2: have been lucky, they must have been missed out. And 57 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:43,400 Speaker 2: then you'd find that they'd lost their wife and their 58 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:46,320 Speaker 2: children and their mum or their sisters, and extraordinary, they'd 59 00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:49,520 Speaker 2: still smile and embrace us and want to share their rice. 60 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:51,480 Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, this, I mean, this is the thing with 61 00:02:51,639 --> 00:02:59,400 Speaker 1: something like this. People lost entire families. It's hard to comprehend. 62 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:01,800 Speaker 2: Few people missed out. That was the point about it. 63 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:04,760 Speaker 2: Every time we, as I said, we thought, this man 64 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:07,040 Speaker 2: must be must have been lucky. He's cleaning out his 65 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 2: shop of all the mud and the streets, and so 66 00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:11,480 Speaker 2: we go along and he'd stop and come out and 67 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:13,960 Speaker 2: greet us and complete stranger and spoke to English, and 68 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,280 Speaker 2: through the interpreter, we then learned that he'd been the 69 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 2: hell and back like everybody else. And yet were this, 70 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,960 Speaker 2: I mean, beautifully resilient people. It's just that if there 71 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:24,520 Speaker 2: was any in a reminder of that, was was just 72 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:28,480 Speaker 2: the fact that human beings are incredibly strong when it 73 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:30,840 Speaker 2: comes to Christims like these and these people especially, they're 74 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:31,440 Speaker 2: beautiful people. 75 00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:33,320 Speaker 1: It's a shame it takes these sort of things for 76 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,920 Speaker 1: us to be reminded of that one. You know, the 77 00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:39,320 Speaker 1: first thing that I thought when I saw, you know, 78 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:42,760 Speaker 1: what had happened, was reminded me of just whatever you do, 79 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:46,560 Speaker 1: there is no defense against the power of nature. But 80 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,000 Speaker 1: you know what, what did we did? We were we 81 00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:54,680 Speaker 1: able to learn things from this to you know, prepare 82 00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:56,320 Speaker 1: us for our next time there. 83 00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:59,640 Speaker 2: Certainly in Vanderachi this time, in that part of it 84 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:02,360 Speaker 2: did need there are lots of warning signs and instructions 85 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:04,080 Speaker 2: on what to do should there be an earthquake or 86 00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:07,000 Speaker 2: a tsunami again. They're conscious that even though it was 87 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:09,840 Speaker 2: once in a last time sort of disaster, that it 88 00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:13,080 Speaker 2: could happen again, and certainly with Indonesia. In Indonesia they 89 00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:15,520 Speaker 2: talk about a version of that happening again. But it's 90 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 2: really what's amazing if you'd been asleep for twenty years 91 00:04:18,920 --> 00:04:22,200 Speaker 2: and went to Vandarache. Now they're accepting tourism. When we 92 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:25,360 Speaker 2: were there, even before the tsunami, it was a bit 93 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:29,840 Speaker 2: of a rebel muslim A province in Indonesia, and so 94 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:32,520 Speaker 2: they didn't encourage people to go there. But so the 95 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:34,560 Speaker 2: civil war was going on when we were there and 96 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:38,440 Speaker 2: when the tsunami hit. Today it's far more. You know 97 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:41,120 Speaker 2: that the highways work, and the power says to work 98 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:43,920 Speaker 2: and people. I thought that there'd be a you know, 99 00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:46,000 Speaker 2: we'd lose a generation. When you lose one hundred and 100 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,880 Speaker 2: eighty thousand or so people from one area, you'd think, well, 101 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:52,960 Speaker 2: how they're going to recover. But we went to lunch 102 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:55,200 Speaker 2: or dinner, just eating out, and you'd see families there 103 00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:57,920 Speaker 2: with just like a family in Perth where you'd see 104 00:04:58,000 --> 00:04:59,880 Speaker 2: older people and middle age and kids and so on. 105 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:02,240 Speaker 2: I wondered what had happened because I thought we've probably 106 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:04,480 Speaker 2: lost a generation. Were so many women and children. 107 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,200 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's incredible, right With any of these stories, in 108 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:09,560 Speaker 3: this one in particular, there were remarkable stories of survival. 109 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,320 Speaker 3: And sometimes it's just incredible luck, but people make decisions 110 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,679 Speaker 3: with that will to live. You must have come across 111 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:17,400 Speaker 3: some of those kind of people, those stories. 112 00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:21,320 Speaker 2: Every half every hour, you'd come across stories like that. 113 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:23,480 Speaker 2: There was there's one in particular, I'll see for an 114 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:26,560 Speaker 2: old journalist who used to try and research things, you've 115 00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:28,040 Speaker 2: got to go back to files, and you've got to 116 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:31,000 Speaker 2: go back and slogs to slog through things. Today you 117 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:33,599 Speaker 2: go to someone like Indoniesia or Archer. And we were 118 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:36,200 Speaker 2: trying to find people whom we did interviewed at the 119 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:39,480 Speaker 2: time who were not government officials and not police officers 120 00:05:39,920 --> 00:05:42,120 Speaker 2: or ambulance and some of this was just ordinary people 121 00:05:42,200 --> 00:05:44,760 Speaker 2: who were and we happened upon and spoken to. And 122 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:46,800 Speaker 2: I had to take a lot of photographs of people 123 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:48,640 Speaker 2: up there, and I'd sent them to them and anyway, 124 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:51,320 Speaker 2: our research up there, we went on TikTok and we got 125 00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:54,599 Speaker 2: ninety one thousand hits for one particular man, and we 126 00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:57,359 Speaker 2: found not just who he was, but where his suburbed, 127 00:05:57,360 --> 00:05:59,360 Speaker 2: what his street, where his house was. We went down. 128 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,840 Speaker 2: It was the most remarkable story because twenty years ago 129 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:04,760 Speaker 2: when we met him, he was a forty five year 130 00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:07,680 Speaker 2: old carpenter and he was just riding his bike around 131 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:11,120 Speaker 2: this town square, almost like a metronome. He was in 132 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:13,479 Speaker 2: a daze, and it turned out that he was. He 133 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:15,680 Speaker 2: had had his two children, one three year old boy 134 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:18,160 Speaker 2: and one two year old boy, on the sidecar of 135 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,279 Speaker 2: his pushbike and anyway, so we saw him there doing 136 00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:22,880 Speaker 2: it for about an hour. I stopped to talk to him, 137 00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:25,039 Speaker 2: and it turned out that he lost his wife and 138 00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:26,919 Speaker 2: his daughter. They had been gone to the beach that 139 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,080 Speaker 2: day and that was a month ago, and they disappeared, 140 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:34,200 Speaker 2: and he was in a metal state and he didn't 141 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:36,279 Speaker 2: know how he's going to survive, and clearly he had 142 00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:39,000 Speaker 2: been traumatized. But we used the story as an example 143 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:42,240 Speaker 2: of how you can't film someone's heart in someone's soul. 144 00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:45,479 Speaker 2: But this man had been damage forever, it turned out 145 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:47,440 Speaker 2: when we found him, and he's the two boys who'd 146 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:50,400 Speaker 2: now gone through university who were very respectful a handsome 147 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:52,719 Speaker 2: young man and they talked to us, and there was 148 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:56,640 Speaker 2: an older lady, older woman, and another woman who was 149 00:06:56,680 --> 00:06:59,560 Speaker 2: there with shildren. And as I was talking to the 150 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,280 Speaker 2: two three men, the two young men and the all man, 151 00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:05,560 Speaker 2: it's a petty drop and I thought, hey, this is 152 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:10,040 Speaker 2: a missing wife, this is the missing girl. Four hours 153 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:12,880 Speaker 2: after we did the interview, they were reunited the girl, 154 00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:16,400 Speaker 2: the two women had been and it's almost I almost cried. 155 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:17,800 Speaker 2: It was just the sort of thing that you get 156 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:21,720 Speaker 2: in romance novels. And the suddenest man was this complete family, 157 00:07:21,760 --> 00:07:23,880 Speaker 2: but he was he was lost in space. He just 158 00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:27,240 Speaker 2: thought his life was over, and suddenly these two two 159 00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:29,320 Speaker 2: women in his life appeared. So and those sorts of 160 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:31,320 Speaker 2: things happened all the time. It must because it was 161 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:34,080 Speaker 2: you know, there were bridges knocked out by the wave, 162 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:37,160 Speaker 2: and they were people isolated from one another for long 163 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:39,520 Speaker 2: periods of time, this case a month before they found 164 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:41,840 Speaker 2: each other. But they're just beautiful human stories. 165 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:44,320 Speaker 1: That is an amazing story. 166 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:50,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean I teared up. I'm bit of 167 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:53,560 Speaker 2: but I teared up anyway because I couldn't believe. I 168 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:55,880 Speaker 2: couldn't believe it happened. I thought because I thought it 169 00:07:55,920 --> 00:07:58,120 Speaker 2: must have been the second wife and maybe a daughter 170 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:00,240 Speaker 2: from that family, but it wasn't. It was the the 171 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:00,920 Speaker 2: original one. 172 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,640 Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a beautiful spot to Arenda shack 173 00:08:04,720 --> 00:08:06,920 Speaker 1: with you on We must let you go, but there 174 00:08:06,960 --> 00:08:09,720 Speaker 1: will be I'm sure lots of stories are from people 175 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:13,200 Speaker 1: that were there on Sunday night in Tsunami twenties on 176 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,480 Speaker 1: seven o'clock on Channel nine, Ray Martin. It is always 177 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:19,360 Speaker 1: such a pleasure to talk to you. 178 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:22,320 Speaker 2: Thank you, Lisa. It is be crazy wonderful to hear 179 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:26,280 Speaker 2: your voice. Mate, love your great to talk to you too. Yeah, 180 00:08:26,280 --> 00:08:28,960 Speaker 2: I love you too. You take me Christmas, you too.