MALE, Maldives (29 Dec 2004) -- A last-minute decision to change the direction of a sea trip almost certainly saved the lives of a Worcestershire couple who were in the Maldives as the tsunamis swept across the Indian Ocean. Neil and Marina Thorneywork, who are keen divers, were actually underwater when the tidal waves struck the eastern edge of the island of Kandooma. Mr Thorneywork, aged 50, a stockbroker from Blackminster, near Evesham, said: "When we left for the dive everything was fine but when we got back the resort had been literally flattened. We felt something under the water and we had felt a tremor at seven in the morning but nothing could have prepared us for what we saw. "We were incredibly lucky because we changed our dive point at the last minute. Our original dive point took a direct hit from the wave and we would have undoubtedly have been killed had we stuck with it." He is thanking the sound judgement of a Maldivian boat crew for the decision to move from the area originally selected for the last dive of the holiday. "The crew, thank God, saw that the water was rising up a bit and didn't think it was a good place to dive. If we had dived there we would have been exactly in the area the tsunami hit." Having moved to another part of the sea, Mr and Mrs Thorneywork dived to about 25 metres. While they were underwater the surging sea and poor visibility eventually forced them to get back on the boat and head to Kandooma. Mr Thorneywork said: "When we got back there was debris everywhere. We saw a lot of people gathered by the swimming pool and I assumed there had been an almighty great rainstorm. "We made our way to the chalet where we had been staying to find our room waist deep in water and sewage, the walls broken and the toilet smashed." Fortunately, earlier in the day, the couple had packed their passports and travel documents in a waterproof plastic bag. "The call came out for women and children to go to boats to be taken to another island and I know it sounds silly now but I thought at the time it was all a bit of an adventure," he said. | | A destroyed jetty at the Medhufushi Hotel is seen hours after a tidal wave ripped through the hotel on the Meemu atoll, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Male, Maldives islands, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004. All guests were evacuated and the hotel has been closed. The couple were eventually taken off the island before being flown to Gatwick the next day, still dressed in the shorts and t-shirts they were wearing when they finished their dive. It wasn't until they saw local television news footage of the disaster before leaving for the airport that the Thorneyworks' realised how close they had come to losing their lives. "I was trying to be a man and fight back the tears but we do owe our lives to the extraordinary coincidences that we were on a boat rather than the island and that we switched the spot where we were to dive. We were very, very lucky." |
