BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA – Tragedy struck this coastal region again as over 600 people were killed by a massive tsunami of people fleeing the beaches in anticipation of an actual tsunami.
At approximately 2:45 local time on Wednesday afternoon, reports of an 8.9-magnitude earthquake came from the US Geological Survey, setting off tsunami alarms in 28 countries bordering the Indian Ocean. Tragically, the alarms also caused a tidal wave of panic and mass rushing for higher land.
Casualties from the stampede were highest in Indonesia, where the majority of the 260,000 deaths in the 2004 tsunami took place. However, there were also trampling-related deaths in Sri Lanka and Thailand, where up to 45 people were killed on Kata and Karon beaches alone.
According to witnesses, the Phuket deaths were the result of the extreme obesity of the tourists fleeing the beaches, forming a “sunburned wall of greasy fat” that rolled over everything in its path.
Six tourists were also killed by a human tsunami in Krabi, where it was reported that the victims were running the wrong way towards the water, apparently in hopes of photographing the real tsunami with their iPhones, when they were cut down by a 5-meter deep wall of European tourists.
Despite the tragedy, many governments are hailing the event as a successful test of the tsunami warning system.
“We now can get people safely away from approaching water,” noted a member of the Indonesian Coast Guard. “Now we just need a way to warn the people about the other people.”
