Honouring Samoa: A Survivor Retells the Day The Tsunami Hit The South Coast

This story is written by a young Samoan woman who survived Samoa’s tsunami. Because of its length, it will be posted as a three part series. When we first heard of  this young woman’s experience, we contacted her to see if she would be willing to share her story with our readers, in her own words.  Her name is Steph. Here’s an excerpt from what she wrote to us in which she stresses the need to hear other people’s stories:

Other stories are more miraculous than mine but I’m thankful I have somewhere to voice what happened where others cannot, and believe me, there are other stories from that disaster that I hopefully will be told to the world. God bless. Steph

In honour of all the dead, the victims, and survivors of Samoa and Tonga’s Tsunami.

By Steph Fa’amatala

This story is dedicated to Kenape the boy who held onto me.

My mother, my son and myself all travelled to Western Samoa on the 19th September 2009. We were heading to a village in Saanapu Tai on Upolu Island, where most of my mother’s family lived.

On the Tuesday 29^th September 2009, between  6:30 to 7:30 in the morning, the earthquake struck.  As the earth continued to tremble, my mother, my aunties, and all the elderly ladies were trying to get us kids out of bed, and out of the house, using those held samoan- made brooms, known as salu lima.

Photo frames were falling off the walls, flower necklaces, pictures, stereo and TV, all falling off.  The computer fell off its table. Our suitcases fell off the tables it was on. Chairs were falling over backwards.

Us elder kids grabbed the little ones and tried to run out of the house. It was difficult as the ground was shaking so bad  that you could not even walk straight. Everything was smashing all around us. The little ones were crying. The elders were screaming from outside to get out. The older boys were carrying the elderly up behind the houses and huts towards the hills and mountains. The little kids who were all dressed for school, were running up the hill, laughing, happy thinking, this is a game.

I grabbed my mother’s bag, and our passports, that were in our suitcases. I looked around and everyone was just standing around talking about what just happened. My mother and her sisters, were just telling us to run for the hills and to get away from the houses.

We started moving towards the hills but the majority of the villagers were still standing around wondering what happened … ( as Samoans sometimes do,) when the minister drove past in his car in a hurry and screamed that a tsunami was coming.

Everyone was for their own self after that. We were running but it was hard to run up the hill. I was wearing se’evae kosokoso (sandals), and the grass was high, the bushes were thick, the trees and shrubs were sharp but the loud explosion was what kept us going. It was an explosion like a bomb had been set off.  Then there was a noise like a rushing sound only louder. Little did we know, as we were rushing up that hill, that the sound was the waves coming towards us.

Someone pushes me upwards and forwards. I’m pushing a neighbour’s child up the hill and pulling my cousin with me. I look far up ahead and see my mother crying and looking out towards the ocean behind me. I hear children screaming. The older boys are yelling:
Faakope le kamo’e la ua sau le galu! (“Run faster the wave is coming!”), kamomo’e! (“Run”).
I turn quickly only to see the house that we slept in half an hour before look so tiny against the big waves. It was a sight that i’ll never forget for the rest of my life. I look towards the bottom of the hill. There are still people coming…I knew that they might not make it.

I prayed and I cried. I knew what was coming and that some of us might not make it. I was shocked.

I see a man hold a woman to a tree and then throws himself around her and pushes her into the tree. I see men holding onto each other and holding onto fences that were the entrance to the hill. I knew I had to run but I couldn’t stop watching.

Someone slaps me on the head and screams, Aikae Kamoe! (S***t, run!”). It was my older cousin. He had already taken the kids off me and had ran straight pass me. I don’t remember much after that, but I knew that I had just keep going.

Click here for Part 2 Kenape: Suga, aumai lou lima kago e fusi mau a’u ae o lea o le a ou kaupe i le laau...Girl, give me your hand, try and hold me tight, and I will hold onto a tree.