Tsunami: Up, close and personal

It was 6.30 in the morning when I first felt the tremors while jogging on the
seashore, near my home (Besant Nagar). The mild tremors settled in a while and I
went back home, talked about it with my wife, and began scanning updates in
media to figure out if there was anything that corroborates. While I was at it-I
heard an explosion and rushed out to investigate the cause. It was 8.30 am.
Outside I saw people runn-ing helter-skelter. I was puzzled, unable to make out:
what's wrong?

I heard my wife shouting out to me to look at the sea. It was fast
approaching the shore-the tidal waves much higher than our hou-ses. For almost
full minute, I went numb and just stood there paralyzed. The next minute, I
realized that reaching to the car and running away from the house will be too
time consuming. We will be swept by the waves. Moments later we were rushing to
the terrace on the second floor. There we helplessly watched the sea coming to
us. I saw the waves hitting the boundary walls of many buildings, collapsing
them and miraculously slowing down only a few meters from our house. Only few
inches of seawater entered our ground floor car park area. As the water began to
recede we rushed outside to help the neighborhood. People had lost shelter,
belongings to the sea and were stranded on the road. In seconds the landscape
had changed. Another Tsunami overtook the coast soon after but the intensity was
much less. The relief operations continued till night and are still on.