A 57-year-old Tonga man survived 27 hours at sea in the ocean after a tsunami wave swept him out to sea.
The incident (事件) happened after the huge eruption of a volcano in the island kingdom of Tonga. Lisala Folau said that he was painting his house when his brother told him a tsunami was moving toward the small island of Atata.
Folau is disabled and has difficulty walking. He said he climbed a tree to escape the first wave but when he got down, another big wave swept him away. "I could hear my son calling from land, but I didn't want to answer him because I didn't want him to swim out to rescue me," said Folau.
Folau was swept out to sea at about 7 p. m. local time. Then, he said he swam another eight hours to a second island with no one living on it before finally swimming again to the main island of Tongatapu. The experience lasted more than 27 hours and covered 7.5 kilometers.
Folau said that he went underwater nine times. "On the eighth time I thought, ‘The next time I go underwater, my arms are the only things that are keeping me above water'," said Folau. "So the ninth time I went under and came up and grabbed a log (原木). And that's what kept me going."
In an interview, Folau said he was frightened when the waves took him from land into the sea. "What came into my mind when I was helpless at sea was one thing," he said. "That was my family."
The amazing story of Folau's survival was shared on the Internet. And people described him as a "real-life Aquaman (潜水侠)".
