Having recently arrived on Phi Phi Island to spend a holiday in a splendid tourist resort, Elena had gone out to buy some fruit, unaware that a thirty meter high wave was heading towards the Thai island.
“I saw people running away in horror. I turned around and saw a gigantic wave coming towards me at a very high speed. I threw myself into it – Elena tells SBS Italian – and it was like finding myself in the centrifuge of a washing machine together with debris, trees, houses and other people”.
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The painter Elena Rivautella in front of one of her works. Credit: Elena Rivautella.
Elena Rivautella saved herself by clinging to the roof of a house and then, together with other survivors, was rescued and rescued by the inhabitants who lived in the upper part of the village.
After two days, he managed to call his mother and let her know that she was still alive. The newspapers had reported her missing and it was feared that she was dead.
But I didn't come here to die and I said a strong NO to death.
Elena Rivautella, survivor of the 2004 tsunami.
A lawyer by profession, after the traumatic experience Elena felt a strong impulse to paint, something she had never done before.
Thanks to painting, Elena – who abandoned the legal profession to embrace that of a painter full-time – overcame the trauma of the tsunami she experienced firsthand on 26 December 2004.
“Scream purple”, a painting by Elena Rivautella inspired by her dramatic experience in 2004. Credit: Elena Rivautella.
The unstoppable wave, caused by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the island of Sumatra, devastated the coastal regions of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh, reaching as far as Somalia and Kenya.
A destructive wave that spread for over 4,500 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake and caused approximately 230,000 victims, 25% of which were children.
The tsunami also killed 40 Italian citizens and 26 Australians.
You might also be interested in – The testimony of Patrizia Mancini, an Italian who worked in the Maldives
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