The wave was one huge wall, strong, dark and menacing, casting its own shadows. Frothing and fuming, it was advancing towards the shore at very high speed.

On December 25, 2004, I arrived at Nagercoil to attend a family function at the house of Tamil writer, Sundara Ramaswamy. On the 26th, I went sightseeing to Kanyakumari, just a 30-minute drive away, with a friend's family who had also come visiting from Chennai. The family comprised Akhila, her two children - a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl - Akhila's parents, both in their late 50s, and our driver.

When we reached Kanyakumari beach, we found the sea turbulent, and we had already got news of the rough seas in Chennai, so we decided to leave for Nagercoil. On the way, our driver took a small detour to Suthavali beach. Here, the sea seemed calm, the water had receded and it looked like low tide. People told us the sea had been 'misbehaving' since morning, with the water ebbing and flowing. We spent about five minutes there and, just as we were about to leave, we saw a wave forming on the horizon.

The wave rose higher and higher - at first, it was a fantastic sight. I heard someone shouting, "Look, it's a miracle, you can never see such a spectacle again!" I started filming it on my video camera. The wave was one huge wall, strong, dark and menacing, casting its own shadows. Frothing and fuming, it was advancing towards the shore at very high speed. It soon became apparent that we would have no chance to escape. We later found out that the speed of a tsunami wave is something like 800 km per hour, the speed of an aircraft!

We ran. Our car was parked just about 20 feet behind us. Actually, since the road is much higher than the beach, even the high tide waters do not normally reach it. But this wave was different. The height of this tidal wave was almost that of a two-storeyed building. Before we could reach the car, the wave hit us squarely. The driver had already got in, while my friend's family was just behind the vehicle. And I ran to hide behind the car too.

The wave lashed at us, and tossed the car into the air. All at once, we were drowning and being dragged across half a kilometre over a rough surface, crashing through coconut groves, trees, bushes, ditches, rocks, walls…I kept telling myself only two things: hold your breath, and don't let go of the camera. Just when I felt I couldn't hold my breath any longer, the water began to recede. I grabbed a pole and a broken tree to stop myself from getting dragged back out with it.

To my amazement, I realised I hadn't suffered any major injuries. I got up slowly, dazed, and with disbelief. My camera remained firm in the palm of my right hand. I clambered onto a hillock nearby and saw three or four more men surfacing and walking about slowly. We could hear moans, cries for help from different directions. The whole place looked devastated, there was water everywhere. Many people were trapped in ditches, seriously injured. Many others had broken legs and arms. Everyone's clothes had been ripped off. We managed to lift five or six people out of the water and placed them on a higher plane behind a tree. I told them to hold on to the tree in case the water came again.

And then I started looking for my friend's family. There were dead bodies scattered all around me. I found our Ambassador car, some 100 metres from the road, crushed inside the coconut grove. The driver was lying dead inside. After much searching, I found Akhila, dead in a small pool of water, her right hand ripped off. There was panic in the air and people were shouting at us to leave the place, as there was a chance of another wave hitting the shore. I reached the village on the other side, away from the sea, walking through hip-deep water. Akhila's mother had survived too, and she was walking towards the village, dazed, bleeding from her legs and hands. Along with Akhila's mother and many more injured people, I was rushed to a nearby hospital for first-aid.

When we reached Sundara Ramaswamy's house in Nagercoil later, we found out that Akhila's son had survived too and was in a hospital. By evening, Akhila's father was found too - but in a serious condition. Both are battling for their lives in the ICU. Many bodies had been brought to the morgue in Nagercoil, and we identified the bodies of Akhila, her two-year-old daughter and our driver. More than 500 people in the area had perished from the wave.

I am still recovering from the shock and am being treated for elbow and knee injuries. My friend,Sundara Ramaswamy and his friend are taking care of me. Soon, I will return to Chennai. My camera, a Sony PD 100, is broken, clogged with water and sand. I don't know if it can be repaired or if the footage can be salvaged. The images, hitherto unseen on television, would be heart-rending. But no more so than my memories.

R.V.Ramani

Cinematographer and film-maker, R V Ramani, graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, specialising in motion picture photography. With more than 15 independent films to his credit, Ramani's work has been shown at international film festivals. Retrospectives of his oeuvre have been presented at the Mumbai International Film Festival 2002, the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and DokumentART.

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