Tsunami: Surfing to Safety

It's not unusual to hear about surfers hitting the waves right before a hurricane hits the coast, but surfing during a tsunami? That's crazy talk!

But that's exactly what saved the life of a British surfer when an 7.6-magnitude quake struck the Samoan islands last Wednesday, causing deadly tsunami.

Tom Gogola, 22, was surfing while on vacation in Samoa when the island was unexpectedly hit by a 20-foot wave. Rather than paddle away from the huge wall of water, Gogola and a friend aimed their boards right at the wave and surfed it to safety, reports the UK's Daily Mail. They were eventually picked up at sea by a boat.

Gogola says many of the other surfers who were on the water with them at the time ended up getting washed into the jungle. It's unclear what became of them.

But Gogola and his buddy weren't the only ones to surf their way to safety. New Zealand student Chris Nel was surfing on the south coast of Savai'i island in Western Samoa when the quake hit.

"All of a sudden the water went really weird, it kind of glassed off and got really lumpy, then we started moving really quick, getting sucked out to sea," Nel told the Daily Mail. 

Nel ended up riding out the tsunami for an hour and a half, terrified that if he didn't stay on the good side of the wave, he too would be washed into the coast.

"After about 35 or 45 minutes of floating around, we managed to time it between a surge to get to land through the reef channel," Nel told the Daily Mail. "We were really, really lucky."

Lucky is right. Wednesday's quake was followed by another 6.6-magnitude earthquake Thursday. Officials says the death toll could reach into the thousands, with almost 610 confirmed dead so far.

Photo of surfers in Western Samoa (not during tsunami) courtesy of Glenn Reeves via Flickr.