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Creep Radio is a spine-chilling weekly podcast hosted by the Master of Creep, uncovering eerie tales, true crime, and the darkest corners of the paranormal world.
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Run or Die: How Eight Minutes Changed Everything
Death arrives with little warning. Muhammad, a 38-year-old Indonesian fisherman, had only minutes to decide who in his family would survive when the ground beneath Sumatra began violently shaking on December 26, 2004. His harrowing first-person account of the Indian Ocean tsunami offers a rare window into one of history's deadliest natural disasters.
With only one scooter and five family members, Muhammad made the split-second decision to send his three children to higher ground first. It was a choice that saved their lives but led to heart-wrenching separation from his wife, who refused to leave without her stubborn mother. As waves over 100 feet high decimated coastlines across 14 countries, Muhammad watched buildings, ships, and thousands of lives vanish in minutes. His vivid descriptions of racing against time, witnessing the unstoppable wall of water, and the aftermath that claimed over 230,000 lives create an unforgettable narrative of survival against impossible odds.
Beyond the immediate catastrophe, Muhammad's story continues through the grueling aftermath - searching for family members, rebuilding from concrete slabs and debris, and establishing a new normal despite profound loss. The international humanitarian response helped communities recover, but "tsunami flu" and disease outbreaks claimed countless additional lives. Today, Muhammad shares his experience with a powerful warning: if you're at the shore and see water suddenly receding, run immediately to higher ground. Despite improved early warning systems worldwide, recognizing nature's signals could be the difference between life and death.
Subscribe to Creep Radio for more firsthand accounts of extraordinary survival stories and visit creepradio.com for additional content that explores the darker side of human experience. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear Muhammad's critical tsunami warning sign - it might save their life someday.
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AHHHHH, welcome to Creep Radio, where we dive deep into the dark, the bizarre and the unexplained. Dim the lights and lock your doors. Prepare to get creeped out because the unknown is calling. And we're about to answer. I'm your host, the Master of Creep. Welcome back, my little creepies.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to talk about a 2004 disaster. It was the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Now a tsunami is a series of waves in a body of water caused by the displacement of large volumes of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other underwater explosions below and above the water have all been known to cause a tsunami. Another cause is landslides. Sometimes a volcano or eruption will cause a landslide to slip into the ocean, which generally causes a super tsunami, the extra big ones. The country of Japan experiences more tsunamis than any other country. In fact, that's where the name tsunami originated. It translates into harbor wave because that's what it looked like. It was a big wave in the harbor, but they didn't know at the time that these waves can go clear across the ocean many thousands of kilometers and they reach very high speeds, several hundred kilometers per hour. On December 26 at 7.58 am in Sumatra, indonesia, there was a huge tsunami following an earthquake. Now this is a story of a 38-year-old fisherman who lived through this. His name was Muhammad. Now Muhammad speaks Indonesian, so as he tells his story, of course we have converted it into English. His story of course we have converted it into English. My name is Muhammad and I was born on the island of Sumatra, which is the largest island in western Indonesia. It's the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory. In fact, sumatra is the sixth largest island in the world.
Speaker 1:I work on a boat and catch tuna using pole and line. This is known as one-by-one fishing. Indonesia produces about 16% of the world's supply of tuna each year. This puts Indonesia as the world's top tuna exports, along with Japan. Fishing tuna pole and line is different from what you might think. Pole and line means that we use live bait. We throw the bait fish overboard and spray the water to attract schools of tuna. Then each fisherman uses a single pole with a barbless hook, so we hook the tuna and we pull them into the ship. The tuna falls off the hook as soon as the tension is released. This all happens within about two or three seconds. We fish for tuna year-round. However, october through December is usually a very slow time of year. Some of the fishermen take these months off because they can find work on shore that actually pays better.
Speaker 1:On December, the 26th, early in the morning, I was scheduled to work at the dry dock repairing boats that were pulled out of the water for their annual inspection. I was in my home at Bandaachi getting ready to go to work, when I felt the ground shaking. Well, I knew right away that this was an earthquake, and it was a big one too. I also knew that the big wave would soon hit us. I had to get my wife and three kids out of here quick and move to higher ground. There were the five of us, and we only had transportation from a small scooter that I used to go back and forth to work. We had a few pets and some chickens, but they would all have to be on their own. We had very little time and the kids were still in bed. I yelled at the kids get up quickly, we need to move now. There was no way that we were all going to fit on the scooter, so I put my oldest son, who was 16, in charge of his two sisters, who were 12 and 8 years old. They all barely fit on the scooter and I told him to drive as fast as he could to the mountains. You must get to high grounds. You only have a few minutes. Now go. We didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, just go.
Speaker 1:The two girls were crying and, of course, my son was scared. My son asked what are you and mom going to do? And I said I don't know yet, but you need to go now fast. And I watched as they started the scooter and drove off. My wife wanted to go and get her mother and I didn't know it at the time, but the earthquake was measured at 9.3 on the Richter scale and it happened only about 110 miles away.
Speaker 1:The tsunami was only 16 minutes from us and I knew it was going to be fast, but I didn't realize it at the time just how soon it would hit. By the time we got the children up and dressed and out the door, we had already used eight minutes, so we only had about eight or nine minutes left before the first wave hit. As with all tsunamis, the first wave isn't the biggest. However, by the time the third wave hit, it was more than a hundred feet high. The wave hit the shoreline. Between the waves, the sea would level out and recede and suck everything that wasn't attached to the ground out to sea, including people.
Speaker 1:My wife and I ran to her mother's house so that we could get her out, but she wasn't going to leave. She claimed that the water wasn't going to reach very high. At this point I got into an argument with my wife. I told her we don't have time to argue with your mother. We need to leave now. My wife said no, we need to get her out of here. This is where I separated from my wife. I told her I'm leaving, we have to run. We didn't even have a scooter, we were on our own.
Speaker 1:I was terrified and fully expected to die that day, especially after I got a few hundred yards down the street and turned around and I saw the first wave approaching the island. It looked to be about three miles offshore and from a distance it didn't really look too big until I saw it hit one of the ships in the harbor. It picked the ship up and flipped it upside down and rolled it over like it was a toy. Then I knew I was doomed. I started running as fast as I could and looking back every few seconds, I stopped running to catch my breath and I watched the first wave hit the shore. At this point I was about a mile inland and I had an advantage point that allowed me to see the wave as it crashed over a lot of the small huts that were near the shoreline. I knew that hundreds of people were probably dying.
Speaker 1:I thought about my wife. She was probably still arguing with her mother, and each wave that hit it hit bigger and bigger. She was stubborn and it will probably mean their death. Looking back on all of this, I realized that the last time that I was with my wife was during an argument. But you know, you can only help someone to a certain point and they must be willing to put in the effort to want to live. I didn't have the answer for my wife and her mother. My solution was to run and to run now, but they didn't agree with me and now they are gone. I finally reached high ground.
Speaker 1:After running about a mile, I hitched a ride on the back of a truck that was also escaping the tsunami. This probably saved my life. Finally, I felt for the first time since this all started that I was probably going to live. We raced up the hillside, picking up other stranded people who were also running. The truck stopped on a hill where we could watch the horror unfold beneath us. I lost count of the waves, but I noticed that they were getting smaller and smaller each time.
Speaker 1:The first few waves did the most damage and killed more than 230,000 people in 14 different countries. People in 14 different countries. People, cars, trucks, buses, entire buildings were swept out to sea. Most of the people were killed by debris pinning them against trees and cars, large rocks and buildings with millions of pounds of pressure. A very large fishing boat was sitting on the landscape about a thousand yards inland. All in all, the entire disaster took about two and a half hours for the sea to return to its normal level. Of course, I, along with everybody else, was in shock of the amount of damage that had taken place.
Speaker 1:It turns out that the decision to send the kids ahead of us was the right choice. It saved their lives. My decision to separate from my wife saved my life from my wife saved my life. Unfortunately, her decision to stay and try to convince her mother to leave turned out to be her death. The day after the tsunami, I walked back home and our home wasn't there anymore. In fact, it was hard to tell exactly where our home stood. The land looked totally different and there wasn't anything left. My children arrived about noon the next day and I had to inform them that their mother was missing. I told them that she refused to leave her mother, who was determined to stay at her home. It was a happy reunion and a sad reunion all at the same time.
Speaker 1:Fast forwarding, one year later, we rebuilt our home using some of the slabs of concrete, stones and other debris left behind. Trucks from the airport supplied us with food and water and gave us tents so that we could have a place to sleep at night while we rebuilt our home. My oldest son helped rebuild our home and then left for the mainland and now has a job there. I don't blame him for leaving. If I didn't have a family, I would have also left the island, but fishing is all I know, so I decided to stay and rebuild. My wife and her mother were never found. We set up a memorial for them in our home. I know that the waves killed them. I only hope that it was a quick death.
Speaker 1:After the tsunami, the entire world responded. Many countries responded to the disaster by sending life-saving aid, food and water and supplies. Saving aid, food and water and supplies. Japan gave everything they had and because of them we were able to build our island. The United Nations and World Health Organization also helped a lot.
Speaker 1:The tsunami killed a lot of people. However, the aftermath killed even more. Thousands of people were injured and left homeless. But after that, sickness set in and many people died from flu-like symptoms. It was later called tsunami flu and it is believed that many people ingested seawater that contained organisms that made them sick. Also, malaria broke out in many of the areas, causing even more deaths. I don't think that anybody knows exactly how many people died in this event, but it was probably close to 500,000 people. At the time we did not have an early warning system, but now we do. But I would like to leave you with this one thought If you find yourself at the shoreline enjoying the beach and you see the water rushing out to sea, it's time to run. Thanks for listening to Creep Radio. Don't forget to subscribe and share with your friends. For more links to other creepy content, visit us at creepradiocom. Oh, but wait, we're not done yet. Listen to this.