-Tsunami: The Aftermath-

I'm sure many still remember the huge tsunami incident that had happened on the 26th of December 2004 in Phuket, Thailand. Tsunami: The Aftermath, is a television mini-series that was filmed in the year 2006. This movie is actually based on some of the victim's own personal stories, of how they had lost their loved ones and then finding the strength to move on later in life.

In this movie, there were many issues bringing brought up to the viewers and also, some signs to educate the public on the happenings and effects of natural disasters, be it in terms of emotion, mental and or physical. The movie mainly focus on the Carter family where they were separated in the starting of the movie. Susie, the mother, went for a diving activity organised by the hotel they were staying at, the Khao Lak Oasis hotel, was safe from the tsunami hit. However, her husband, Ian and daughter, Martha were not as lucky as she was. Ian and Martha were separated due to the strong currents of the sea. Ian panicked and kept reminding Martha to hold on to the tree before he fell into an unconscious state. When he regained consciousness, he couldn't find his daughter anywhere. Both Ian and Susie found each other soon after in the movie, and they were still searching for their daughter who was believed to be already dead. Susie could not forgive Ian and blamed him for letting go of their daughter in the first place. Towards the end of the movie, Susie took another person's child from a hospital who look like Martha to replace her missing daughter.

Another scenario showed a Thai waiter working in the Khao Lak Oasis Hotel who went back to his village and discovered the dead body of his beloved grandmother. He took her golden bracelet later and was caught by the local police when he was taking food from the deserted place. The police arrested him because they thought that he was stealing from the tourists when they searched him and found the golden bracelets in his pockets. This scene shows us on how chaotic the place was after the tsunami attack and how the people had go against their moral values by stealing from the place for their own personal gains. But then again, who's to blame? It's for the villagers to do all they can to stay alive after losing everything they had such as money, food, etc.

Other than that, the movie also focused on another family called the Peabody family who were also residing in the hotel. The mum and the youngest son were safe because they had also went for the diving activity. They had learnt about the dad's death soon after from Ian Carter and were still staying strong about it. Soon later, they found the eldest son in the hospital where he was badly injured. The mum, took an advice from an Australian aid worker named Kathy, went to the British Council meeting after that to plead for a plane to take her and her sons home so her elder son could sought proper medical treatment back home. This shows the strength the victims of the tsunami had, to go through the challenges in life instead of caving in to their emotions and lost interest in doing anything to stay alive. As the saying goes, life is never smooth.

Kathy, the aid worker from a christian charity group helped out the villagers in Thai and also had been with Tony Whittaker, a British counselor officer. She helped in the releasing of the Thai worker from prison and also voicing out the pains of some victims to Tony. Tony, on the other hand, has a lot to handle as a representative of the British Council. Due to the tsunami attack, there were chaos everywhere. He had to listen to the people complains and also to deal with what he thinks is worth doing because everyone seems to be complaining and being unhappy with what had happened. Due to this, his faith in the system is also torned apart because there is nothing much he could do when everyone seemed to put their only hope of survival on him.

An aspired journalist, Nick Fraser, was sent to Phuket to gather the latest information with a Thai partner and after what he had seen in Phuket, he felt sad to what had happened at that place. He saw how the monks buried the dead bodies without identifying them first because the dead bodies were just too massive and the monks were forced to burned them to avoid diseases from spreading. Also, he and Ian were angry that some tourists were also burned together without notifying their family first. How is it possible for their family to know whether they're dead or alive? Like in Susie's case where her parents never knew whether the daughter is dead or alive. Nick emailed those pictures of the bodies being burned and got into a heated arguement with his Thai partner, because his partner believe that what they are doing are right and that Nick should understand and respect it. Honestly, I don't think the monks should be blame though.. Because they had to get rid of the dead bodies to prevent an epidermic from attacking their village and also, they did chant prayers so that the dead's soul will rest in peace, least that is what they believe in.

At the end of the story, they showed a scene where a Thai meterologist known as Smith Dharmasaroja was being confronted by a Thai official with a proposal he made years ago being handed to him. Apparently, in the year 1998, he predicted that a tsunami is gonna occur and he also advocated tsunami warning systems but was ignored. After the tsunami attack, he was called back from retirement to helped in the development of Thai and regional warning system.

In this movie, some of the westerners were also wondering about the existence of the tsunami alarm. Questions like "Shouldn't there be a form of warning to alert the people?", etc, were being brought up. This shows that Thailand could have prevented the tsunami from killing so many of the villagers if they had listened to Smith in the first place. On the other hand, it could be also probably due to the low advancement of both technology and the country's economy which made the Thai government think that it is not worth the money to be invested into it yet because after all, it was just a prediction.

There were also some "signs" from nature where the behaviours of the animal were a little bit out of the norm. For example, fishes were at shore, jumping about wildly and birds were all flocking together in the sky, making lots of noises. Certain safety measurements were also being shown to educate the public when the Thai worker kept reminding Ian to move to a higher ground in case of another second attack.

In this movie, the medical facilities provided were not many and a lot of the victims died trying to find a hospital. For example, James Peabody who died during the travel. He could have been saved if there was a hospital nearby in the first place. There were also a very chaotic scene when people were looking around for their family members, not knowing whether their loved ones are safe or not. Emotions were also being brought out when some victims had already found out that their loved ones had already died or when Ian and Nick saw the monks burning the dead bodies, etc. Safety measurements should be taken into count to avoid situations like this from happening. After all, prevention is better than cure.