Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
The Girl Who Survived a Tsunami - The Raudhatul Jannah story
Sat, 01 Feb 2025
Raudhatul Jannah was swept up and lost in the 2004 Tsunami in Meulaboh Indonesia.
What events led to the 2004 Tsunami in Meulaboh, Indonesia?
So one day, suddenly, boom, there's a massive earthquake underwater. And that earthquake sets off a series of tsunamis. And one of those tsunamis is headed right for this town in Indonesia. Now in this town, there's a girl who lives there. We'll call her Four because she's four. So Four lives in this town in Indonesia called Meulabo and she lives there with her mom, her dad, and her sibling.
So anyway, this huge wave of water is coming towards the town and everyone is alerted and they're freaking out and they're all trying to evacuate. And Four's family, they all jump on a motorbike to try and drive away. But unfortunately, everyone else has the same idea. So the streets are packed with traffic. And soon enough, pow, one of the tsunamis hits.
And the water comes crashing through the town and the buildings are being knocked over and people are being swept away. It is complete chaos. And people are panicking and everyone is grabbing onto whatever they can to stay afloat and not get swept away. And as the water rushes in, Four's dad realizes his two little kids are gonna drown if he doesn't do something.
So he spots a big floating piece of wood in the water and he picks up Four and her brother, this kid, Arif. Arif is seven. So dad picks them both up and he puts them on top of this floating piece of wood to keep them safe. But then, bam, more waves hit and it knocks them all apart. And pretty soon the current catches them and it carries the wood away and the kids are still on it.
And Four's parents are screaming. They're like, no, come back. And so the wave carries them out to the ocean. And to make it worse, Four and Arif, they're so young, neither of them know how to swim. So if they fall off this wood or if something knocks them off, they're definitely gonna drown. But we'll come back to them. Meanwhile, back in town, things are not looking so great.
Meulabo is one of the worst places hit by the tsunami, and there's no way for anyone to send help because all the bridges to get to the capital have been washed away. A quarter of the town's population is without food or water, and most people have to pick through the debris to look for any food scraps. And sadly, Four's mom...
who we'll just call mom, she has to go to the hospital where I guess they bring all the bodies of people who didn't make it. And each time they bring in a new body, she checks it to see if it's for Arif. And weeks go by and mom is still out there looking for them. But now she's looking through refugee camps too. But unfortunately, it's not really looking good.
I mean, this tsunami was massive and super deadly. I mean, it killed like an estimated 230,000 people across 14 countries. And by the way, this is considered one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. Supposedly, the highest recorded waves from the tsunami were over 100 feet high and traveled across the ocean at the speed of 500 miles an hour.
That's roughly the speed of a commercial airliner. So imagine 100-foot waves coming at you at the speed of an airplane. That's how insane this natural disaster was. In fact, the earthquake under the ocean that caused the tsunami was so powerful, it literally altered the Earth's rotation slightly, which is just wild to think about. Okay, so anyway, back to four in Arif.
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