Author: Alan Morison
On December 26, 2004, former cnn.com staffer and Phuket publisher Alan Morison received a telephone call from Bangkok, where his marketing manager was collecting her pet poodle.
"What's wrong with the weather in Phuket?" she asked. "Our flight has just been grounded."
When Alan checked at the local newspaper office, the toll from the "tidal wave" had reached 22 and he thought it was an event of some magnitude.
Within days, the toll around the Indian Ocean reached ten thousand times that figure.
Alan, a long-time copy editor, went back on the road as a reporter after the tsunami and stayed there, becoming one of the few journalists permitted to view the forensic autopsy process aimed at identifying nameless victims.
He is a winner of the prestigious Walkley award for journalism in Australia as a headline writer, and shared a second Walkley for Internet coverage of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
In 2008, he founded a regional news and information site, phuketwan.com and with colleague Chutima Sidasathian broke the story in January 2009 that the Thai military was secretly pushing back would-be refugee Rohingya in unpowered boats. Hundreds died, but the abuse was halted.
"What's wrong with the weather in Phuket?" she asked. "Our flight has just been grounded."
When Alan checked at the local newspaper office, the toll from the "tidal wave" had reached 22 and he thought it was an event of some magnitude.
Within days, the toll around the Indian Ocean reached ten thousand times that figure.
Alan, a long-time copy editor, went back on the road as a reporter after the tsunami and stayed there, becoming one of the few journalists permitted to view the forensic autopsy process aimed at identifying nameless victims.
He is a winner of the prestigious Walkley award for journalism in Australia as a headline writer, and shared a second Walkley for Internet coverage of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
In 2008, he founded a regional news and information site, phuketwan.com and with colleague Chutima Sidasathian broke the story in January 2009 that the Thai military was secretly pushing back would-be refugee Rohingya in unpowered boats. Hundreds died, but the abuse was halted.
