Lisala Folau was just painting his house when the first wave hit the living room.

The carpenter, who had given up his job because of a walking disability, tried to flee the floodwaters with some family members.

"My legs don't work properly, if I can walk at all, a toddler will still move faster than me," he told Broadcom FM radio in an interview.

Till Fähnders

Political correspondent for Southeast Asia.

  • Follow I follow

Family members took him to another room when an even higher wave reached his home on Atata Island.

According to Folau's estimates, it was more than twenty feet tall.

This time he managed to hold on to a tree.

After a brief lull, the third wave came—even bigger and more devastating than the second—and dragged Folau out to sea.

It was the beginning of a story that touches many people in Tonga and beyond.

In the days following the massive eruption of the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai off the coast of Tonga last Saturday, the Pacific island nation was cut off from the outside world for days.

An undersea cable was damaged by the natural disaster.

A phone company was able to fix at least a few lines by now.

Little by little, the first reports from the isolated Pacific island nation are reaching the world. According to the radio station, Tonga's government held a press conference in the capital Nuku'alofa for the first time on Sunday.

But Lisala Folau's story stands out from the multitude of fates.

The 57-year-old Tongan drifted at sea for more than 24 hours, twice making it to the shore of small islands.

In the end he reached the main island of Tongatapu - after about seven to 13 kilometers, as the media calculated.

They dubbed him "Aquaman" after a well-known superhero that Folau says he had never heard of.

His descriptions actually sound like something out of a Hollywood film.

As he was being pulled out to sea in the dark, he heard his son's voice.

But he refrained from returning the calls.

"As a father, I kept quiet because I knew he would try to save me," Folau said.

But how could he survive for a whole day? As Folau reports, it was a piece of wood that saved his life. “I went down eight times, gasping for air. The sea spun me around and pulled me under the water. The eighth time I thought: One more time and then it's over. I could only keep my head above water with my arms," ​​he told Reuters. "I said to myself, if I can get up again and then fail, that's it." On the ninth time, he came up and grabbed the log he was holding on to in the swirling water.

According to the radio interview, Folau saw a police patrol boat about twelve hours later.

"I grabbed a rag and waved at them.

But they didn't see me." When he finally arrived on the coast and dragged himself across a street, the local residents were perplexed: "When they saw me, their hopes had been fulfilled." According to the government, at least three people came to the catastrophe people dead.

In the meantime, however, the first flights with relief supplies have arrived from Australia, Japan and New Zealand.

The load is handed over contactless for fear of Corona.

Tonga has so far been spared from the pandemic.