‘Wave came when they were cheering the batsman’

‘‘I saw the wave approach and shouted to the boys to run. But they were cheering a batsman so loudly they did not hear me. The wave dragged them away,’’ says Sankaran, a fisherman, breaking down.

The waves came again, and again—at 9.20, 10.20, 10.40 and finally at 11.

Gone were the couples, the parents and almost all the children. Over 100 died on the Marina alone, as the stunning sequence kept repeating, as if on rewind.

‘‘Being a Sunday, the beach was buzzing with activity. Boys had come in early to secure playing space, elderly couples were out for their morning stroll, vendors were doing brisk business and many had parked their cars by the beach and were having their breakfast. That was when the tide rose. Nobody will ever find out how many were sucked away,’’ says Abu Baker, an eye-witness, who barely managed to escape.

Ironically, minutes before the first wave hit the beach, meteorological officials had assured Chennai on TV that there was nothing to worry after the slight tremor recorded at 6.29 am—an aftershock of the Indonesia quake.

Then again, that was hardly the only thing to go wrong on this manic Sunday.

‘‘As the tide receded, cars and boats on the beach landed hard on the roadside park. The ice-cream parlour opposite the DGP’s Office (near the beach) was submerged in the first wave. After that, there was no sign of life. Anywhere,’’ says Madasamy, a fisherman, still shaken by his encounter with the second and deadliest of the five tsunamis.

Ganesh, blood dripping down his waist, was no so lucky. He survived but says he will now suffer nightmares for the rest of his life.

‘‘We were all hit by the first wave. I caught one of my friends by the hair and dragged him along. But while swimming, I got hit on the waist by something hard. The pain was unbearable, I had to let go of my friend,’’ he says.

As the sea slowly calmed down, thousands rushed to the beach to witness the incredible scenes. And many of them returned home with images that they say will haunt them for a long, long time. Says Pradeep Kumar, a Chennai resident: ‘‘A lot of bodies were strewn all over the beach. That was when I realised the magnitude of this disaster.’’