Some 230,000 people were killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami set off by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004. A dozen countries were hit, from Indonesia to India to Africa's east coast. Scores of Associated Press journalists covered the disaster, and as the 10th anniversary approached, the AP asked 10 of them to describe the images that have stuck with them the most. This is the fourth of their stories, which are being published daily through Dec. 26.
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Wally Santana, a photographer based in Taipei, Taiwan, covered the tsunami from Palai, Sri Lanka:
We had spent three days driving up from Colombo, and another three days to negotiate permission to enter the then-rebel Tamil Tiger group's northern occupied area. Through areas marked with land mines now floating in the flooded pastures, we slowly moved out to the devastated shoreline on pieces of the former road.
As I worked through the sand down the beach, I came across a small group of survivors. It looked like a scene from a deserted island: castaways lost at sea for weeks.
The men, former rebel soldiers, were scavenging wood. The women were sheltering the crying children from the noon sun. There was no food. Everyone was starving. We came with nothing to offer.
Later that day, Sri Lankan volunteers, in conjunction with a Christian missionary, delivered some bread to the suffering group by truck. I saw a boy holding his father's hand as he tearfully bit into a piece of bread, his first food in who knows how long.
I have often thought of this boy and the other children I met there, and how strong they had to be to survive.
