Portishead teacher's narrow escape from Samoa tsunami

A teacher from Portishead has told of his escape from the tsunami that hit Samoa last week.

Stuart Reddrop, 31, moved from Portishead to New Zealand this year to teach.

He was visiting the South Pacific island of Savaii on holiday when the devastating tsunami hit last Tuesday.

He was at the ferry terminal in Savaii (Western Samoa) waiting to catch a boat to Upolu, the Samoan island which bore the brunt of the disaster.

At least 129 people have been reported dead after the tragedy struck the paradise islands, which also wiped out scores of coastal villages, leaving thousands homeless.

Stuart, who grew up in Portishead and went to Bristol Cathedral School, said: "We were pretty lucky. We were actually on the island of Savaii, which had some damage but escaped the worst.

"We were sitting at the ferry terminal waiting to head to the south west coast of the other island Upolu that morning, when a fire engine came screaming round the corner telling everyone to run.

"We started running even though we didn't know what we were running from.

"We were picked up by a Kiwi couple in their car who took us up into higher ground of the jungle where we waited for the next three hours until we got the all clear.

"Apparently there had been an earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale about 10 minutes earlier, which had shaken buildings for around 40 seconds. We had not felt it as we were driving when it happened.

"We felt pretty lucky as we had been heading to Lalomanu on the south west coast of Upolu that day and it was that area that had taken most of the punishment.

"The resorts that we had been booked into, Namua and Taufua, had been totally destroyed with many deaths."

Stuart, who previously attended High Down Junior School and played cricket for Portishead, said once he came down from the jungle in Savaii he saw the damage the waves caused and video footage of cars being tossed about, but the full extent of the disaster was not clear until reports began filtering through of how badly Upolu was hit.