Couple flee for hillson Tsunami alarm

A LONDONDERRY couple living in the Southern Thai province of Phuket sped for the hills on a moped on Wednesday after a massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia sparked fears of a repeat of the 2004 Tsunami disaster.

Claire Mullan (27) and Jonathan Crockett (27) were heading to the beach during the busy New Year holiday of Songkran when the alarm went up.

The local pair have already dodged exploding Iranian bombers, deadly new malaria strains and Malay rebels during their travels in South East Asia but being caught up in a Tsunami panic is probably the most dramatic incident they have encountered so far.

Ms Mullan told the Sentinel: “We were actually on our way to the beach and we noticed lots of traffic heading in the opposite direction.

“Then we got down to a pier not so far from where we live and there were lots of people standing looking out onto the coast.”

At first the couple didn’t realise what was going on as the evacuation alarms had not been sounded in that area but they were soon to get the shock of their lives when they discovered a huge earthquake had struck off Sumatra.

“A Thai fellah was trying to explain but we didn’t understand him so we went on and then asked an Italian couple what everyone was looking at.

“They said they were waiting for the Tsunami! We were like, what the hell? and turned our bike around quickly and headed up the hill!”

Both of the popular Phuket and Phangnga provinces were among the areas devastated by the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that killed more than 5,000 people in Thailand.

The Londonderry couple - who have been living and teaching in South East Asia - since Christmas told there relieved family and friends they were safe and well shortly after the alert made worldwide headlines.

Ms Mullan - a textile designer now teaching English in Thailand - said she was amazed to see so many people just standing looking out to sea given what had happened in 2004.

The local couple quickly joined a group of hundreds of Thais and some westerners on a hill looking down on the coast.

As it happens it’s not the first time the pair have dodged danger on their travels through Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia since the start of the year.

Back in February an Iranian man blew himself up in the Sukhumvit neighbourhood of Bangkok where they had been living before departing for Phuket.

They have also run the gauntlet of a deadly species of Malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, which has become resistant to the most effective anti-malaria drug Artemisinin whilst travelling between Thailand and Burma.

And more recently they hazarded a journey to Malaysia via South Thai provinces that have been subject to a separatist Malay insurgency for decades.

There have been a series of bomb blasts in 2012 there already, most notably in Yala on March 31 when four bombs killed 16 and injured more than 300.

Thankfully the couple have now survived a Tsunami scare on top of all this.

Said Ms Mullan: “We’re grand and hopefully everything will be ok on the coastline.”