Apit and Dede, the brother and sister who cook, clean and do laundry for us--their stories are tougher. Dede (the girl) was on here way to work on a betor (which is like a motor-cycle with a side-car that serves as a taxi) when she felt the earthquake. She told the driver to take her back home but everyone was running away and the driver said that they couldn't go back. She was on high enough ground to not be affected by the tsunami. It was also good that she had not arrived at work yet since she worked on the bottom floor of a 3 story building that collapsed in the earthquake. Her brother, Apit, was home during the earquake with his father, mother, older sister and her husband and their 2 girls. The father had just got a new motorcycle and went out to check on it but Apit wanted him to stay inside, the father wanted to check on the motorcycle but Apit held onto his father. The wave then came and the debris with it. Something hit Apit so he lost hold of his father. He was later able to grab onto a tree that was also debris being swept by the waves. The tree got wedged into another house's rafters and he was able to keep holding onto it for what seemed like such a long time. When the waters finally receded they pulled every loose thing back out towards sea but the tree Apit was holding on to was wedged in and was not pulled out to sea. Apit and Dede met up again and found that they were the only survivors from their family. Their brother-in-law also survived. He had been holding one of his girls and his wife the other. When the wave came he could not help his wife as his arms were around his daughter. He got hit with some debris and lost hold of his daughter but was able himself to hold on to the top of a house and as the wave pulled everything out to sea he held on to the house and survived. He is originally from Medan and left to be with his family there as he was so traumatized by loosing his wife and daughters.