Anil Kumble recalls how he barely escaped the tsunami in 2004
Chennai was one of the worst-hit places during the Tsunami disaster of 2004. Anil Kumble was staying at Fisherman’s Cove which is in the coastal part of Chennai on the day. It was a close shave for him when he left the place just before Tsunami struck the shores of Tamil Nadu.
The former Indian cricket team captain recalled this lucky escape during a conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on the latter’s YouTube show DRS with Ash.
The legenda leg-spinner had a return flight in the morning of the particular day. Anil Kumble recalls seeing people drenched and shivering when he was getting out from his hotel.
“It was like movies”, the former Indian coach narrates, that people were moving around carrying whatever they can. They had kids on their shoulders, bags in their hands and even had pots and pans. He was perplexed without knowing what was happening around him.
I could literally touch the water at a bridge after Fisherman's Cove: Anil Kumble
Leaving Fisherman’s Cove, the water level had almost reached the bridge connecting it with the neighbouring mainland.
"As we were checking out I saw a young couple in their bathrobes, you know literally drenched, and they were shivering. I couldn't make out what it was. We just walked out and sat in the car. After Fisherman's Cove there's a bridge, and I could literally touch the water.”
“When I came back to Bangalore and then switched on the television that's when I realized that a tsunami had happened so we were totally unaware as to what had happened.”
It was a couple of years later that he came to know that the bridge was submerged right after he had left the place.
Over 8,000 people lost their lives to the giant waves that stuck Tamil Nadu in 2004. As Anil Kumble put it, “we (Anil Kumble and his family) were probably destined and saved just in the nick of time.”