Struggling to keep himself and his girlfriend, who couldn't swim, afloat, Ratchai had no chance of saving his mother as she was drowned in the flash floods in Trang on Saturday that killed at least 37 people.

He recalled the tragic moment when he lost his mother to the torrent while desperately clinging to trees at Sairung Waterfall. He, some friends, his girlfriend and his sister were enjoying a swim on the top level of the waterfall as his 53-year-old mother stayed at the bottom level alone.

He said his mother was sitting on a large rock in the middle of the shallow water and only seven metres away from where he and his girlfriend were bathing.

"At the spot where we were, there were quite a number of people because it is a large body of water, as big as a swimming pool. I and my girlfriend were in waist-deep water for five minutes before we heard a sound like a big explosion," he said.

As soon as he heard the noise, Ratchai looked up at the cliff, which is 30 metres high, and saw a wall of water bearing down on them. He screamed at everyone to run for their lives and grabbed his girlfriend's hand. In seconds the water rose till it was head high and swirling viciously, sweeping him and his girlfriend along.

"I couldn't see anything at that time and I almost lost consciousness after my body slammed into a log and a branch hit me in the throat. But I held my girlfriend's hand as tight as I could because she can't swim," he said.

Ratchai managed to grab hold of a big branch floating by and used it to support his girlfriend until they were able to reach the bank of the river. Then he began to search for his mother, sister and friends.

He spotted his mother and a lady in a red T-shirt who looked like she was trying to pull her away from a whirlpool in the middle of the river, but to no avail. "The torrent swept both of them and they disappeared quickly before my eyes, before I could do anything to help them," he said.

Ratchai said the water remained deep and treacherous for about an hour. He eventually found his sister and friends who told him they escaped the worst of the raging torrent. They were swept aside and contained by a small whirlpool which was not strong enough to pull them under.

Altogether, rescue officials found 23 bodies at the Sairung and Prai Sawan waterfalls on Saturday and 14 more yesterday.

Kittipong Chaithong, a resident of Trang's Nayong district, lost his five-year-old daughter, his brother and brother-in-law in the incident which he likened to the Boxing Day tsunami. He and his family of seven were in the same area as Ratchai.

"It was like a tsunami. It was just a giant splash of water and it made you sink immediately. You had no time to run. I saw the heads of people floating by just like plastic bags before they were swept under the water. They were screaming for their lives," he said.

Just a few seconds after he heard the loud explosion, a wave of water flew 30 metres down the cliff. He desperately grabbed his daughter and his son but the force of the water tore them from his grasp and swept him into a crevice. He surfaced, gasping for air, and saw his son alive, apparently saved when his shirt snagged on the branch of a tree.

The son was sitting on a rock looking straight at him. Kittipong was struggling to stay afloat and, fearing he would be dragged under at any second, screamed at his son not to look. "I didn't want him to see me while I was struggling to survive. Luckily for me, the water receded before I was too exhausted to swim any longer," he said.

Kittipong said there was no warning or any indication before the flash flood struck with such deadly force. It had rained just a little but not enough to raise concerns. "There were no indications such as murky water for a flash flood," he said.

Ratchai said he had decided to go to the waterfall because his girlfriend from Bangkok had just come to visit him and the weather was hot. "My sister wanted to go to the beach, but the others agreed that the waterfall would be much more cooler," he said.

Ratchai said there were no indicators that there would be a flash flood which he would have spotted. On a previous visit to Khao Chong Waterfall, the water was murky and started to rise, with leaves and debris sweeping past to alert people that a flash flood was about to hit.

"There was nothing like that to warn us. There had not been any heavy rain and there were no warnings from officials," he said.

Somchai Samart

The Nation