Survivor recounts natural disaster experience

Stefano, can you take me back to that day and tell me where

you were when you knew that something was not right?

Uh, we were just started, uh, about one hour and a half

from the hotel we were staying the night, and we were

almost reaching the,

the, the immigration border.

And just thirty meter in front of us, the--

all things were

like we see in the images, were

destroyed, and we've been lucky that our bus doesn't

affects in the same time the way it came.

We had, like, uh, thirty seconds,

one minute to get out of the bus and to just start

to climb the, the side of the mountain wasn't affected

by the,

the landslide. And I think only two

buses,

uh, been saved from that, and one was mine, and all my

group was safe.

And I'm so grateful I can be here to tell the

story.

Amazing. What were you thinking when you saw

all that water coming at you?

Hey, it's something that you, you're not really thinking something.

You,

you just hope

you can be safe. You don't know if from other side the, the

water can reach you, because we were

very high, like forty, fifty meter.

And the sound was,

uh,

unbelievable. Like, you-- I never, I never been

in, in something like I,

I, I was into a...

I mean,

you are in survival mode in that moment,

and you--

I don't know. There is no word for explain.

We just saw the buses, the people, and the,

all the stuff thirty meter in front of us just

took and go, and

we've been blessed

completely.

What did it sound like? You said you'd never heard anything like

that

before. Tell me about the sound.

It was just

a, a, a big sound of death

everywhere. And, uh,

yeah, the only thing we tried to do it is it was to be

safe and,

and nothing else. We've been lucky we, we didn't get into.

All the houses, all the village has been destroyed.

There, there were nothing left in Timure.

And, uh,

after the waves continue for,

for kilometer, and there were a lot of workers, there

were a lot of trucks, there

were a lot of buses,

but all has been

gone. And a lot of people died. The--

What we se- what, what, what the, the number we are listening

are much more than

what they are saying. Thousand and thousand of people have died.

Was anyone else on the bus able to escape?

Uh, our-- Like, the bus in front of us

and our bus, all the people were safe.

All the other tourists, we,

we, we don't know.

Where did you go once you got off the bus, and how

long was the water rushing past you?

Uh, the water,

uh, maybe for, for ten minutes it's continued

to, to, to go down.

And we,

we went out of the bus, and there were stairs,

uh, next to us, and we start to, to climb the

mountain, uh,

where the water

no, no wasn't arrived. Because, uh, in the other

side of the mountain, the water reached and after came back

and after

start to go down. So we, we... A-all the

people, they, they get safe. They, they just climb

the, the mountain side. It was safe.

And after we spend the whole day there and in

the nighttime it started to rain,

so the, the military couldn't reach us.

And, um, we've been, uh, in a small house with,

uh, all the survivor. And there were like, uh,

fifty-- we were like fifty, sixty people in a small house.

We didn't sleep the night because it was continuing to rain

and, uh, we were also worried about a little

bit. But at the same point, uh, what I c-

I, I brought back for that night, it was the celebration

of life.

And after in the morning,

our prayer reached

the, reached the right place and, um,

the, the rain stopped it, um, from 6:00, like when we went

out in the, the, to the house. After one hour, the

military start to came

and they brought us in,

in

with the helicopter and, uh, in couple of hour,

all the people were saved and

yeah.

How can you make sense of it? How can you process it?

Hey, I, I need time.

And, uh,

I need time because, uh, it's difficult to process.

I'm grateful.

I'm really grateful and, uh,

uh,

I, I, I, I, I've seen the, the death

everywhere,

but I'm alive and climate change is, is

becoming stronger and stronger. We need to take care

of our mother, the Earth.

Stefano Altamolo, thank you for being with us.

We're so glad that you made it, and we hope you get a chance

to rest. I know this has been beyond

comprehension.

Yeah, completely. And thanks for you,

you asked me to be there.