Brit tourist caught up in Thai quake tells of horror saying: ‘I saw walls crack around me… it was like a disaster movie’
A BRIT tourist visiting Bangkok during a devastating earthquake said it was the “scariest thing” she’d ever experienced and felt “like a disaster movie scene”.
Tiffany Man, 25, said when the 7.7-magnitude quake started she at first felt “really unwell”, but realised she was wrong when “the walls started cracking”.
The massive earthquake struck Myanmar and rocked neighbouring Asian countries including Thailand on Friday – with tens of thousands now feared dead.
Tiffany, a pharmaceutical worker from Manchester, told The Sun about her harrowing experience which started when she and her mum were in their hotel laundry room in Chidlom, Bangkok.
At first, she mistook the shaking tremors for being unwell.
She explained: “Originally, I felt dizzy, lightheaded and unable to stand still.
“I thought ‘okay maybe this feeling will go away if I sit down’ – but then it happened again.”
She realised that the feeling was not just in her head when her mum told her: “Something’s shaking.”
The pair then watched in horror as the laundry room’s wall dramatically started to crack around them.
Tiffany said: “Holy s**t when I saw the walls cracking, I knew it was something else.
“I was like ‘oh my God this is not normal’ – it was literally like a scene from a disaster movie.
“It was seriously the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
She told her mum: “We shouldn’t get in the elevator, I think the building’s going to collapse.”
Staff members shouting in Thai instructed the pair to go downstairs, causing Tiffany to grab her mum and bolt for the stairs.
She said: “It fully triggered my fight-or-flight response, the adrenaline rush made me grab my mum’s arm and I just ran.”
The two then went into a terrified panic when they realised her dad and brother were still on the 25th floor of the hotel.
She said: “We were so scared and thought that they were going to be trapped up there.”
Her brother was in the shower at the time and knew something was wrong when “he could hear all the cupboards and doors shaking”.
He also experienced a similar feeling to his sister as he felt “dizzy and unable to stand up properly in the shower”.
Tiffany said her sibling feared for his family’s life as he thought his sister and mum had been trapped downstairs during the rumbling.
“They thought we actually disappeared. It was so chaotic,” she said.
After the shaking stopped, Tiffany and her mum begged staff to save the rest of their family, and they were eventually escorted down.
After reuniting, the family went outside, still shaken from the terrifying ordeal.
Tiffany said the building looked “tilted” and she is still scared to go back there tonight.
The family have one more night in the country, but Tiffany said: “I have no idea how I’m going to get any sleep tonight.
“There could be more waves of earthquakes, it’ still so scary.”
Up to 100,000 are feared dead and 81 trapped in buildings after the devastating earthquake which sent powerful tremors across the continent.
Shock videos show high-rise buildings being reduced to rubble and religious buildings and homes completely crumbling.
Its initial epicentre hit the city of Mandalay in Myanmar before five aftershocks followed minutes later – sparking a serious red alert for death and damage.
The US Geological Survey said on their official website: “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread.”
The organisation categorised the strength of the shaking as “violent” and said there could be up to 100,000 fatalities.
Bangkok’s governor declared the Thai capital is a “disaster area”.