A YORK holidaymaker told today how she survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka - after abandoning plans to go for a swim.

Gwenda Feasby, of Woodthorpe, said something made her put away her bikini, and she was instead sitting in a beachside hotel bar with her husband, Neil, when two tidal waves caused by the Asian earthquake surged towards the beach.

Staff urged them to flee for the safety of the hotel stairs, but they were too crowded, and she was standing in the restaurant when the second wave burst in, leaving her knee-deep in swirling, sandy water - but uninjured.

The couple spoke as the full story of the disaster emerged, with more local travellers returning from the affected areas.

"We were very, very lucky," said Gwenda, 48.

"It was our last day on the island and I had decided to mark it by going for a swim, but something made me change my mind - I don't know what it was.

"If I'd been swimming off the beach when the waves came, I don't think I'd be here now. I think I could have been swept out to sea."

The couple say they were staying on the western side of the island, and so avoided the more destructive waves which devastated the eastern coast.

Even so, the waves still carried great force, destroying beach shacks where some of their hotel staff lived, stripping tiles off the beachside swimming pool, and carrying catamaran boats past hotels and on to the main street.

For 24 hours afterwards, the couple were unable to contact worried relatives back home in York.

"The landlines were down and it wasn't until we had got to the airport the following day that we were able to ring my mother (Joyce Douglas, who lives off Leeman Road). "She said she had practically given me up. Her relief when Neil spoke to her was unbelievable.

"My brother died a couple of years ago and she had said only a couple of months ago that she couldn't bear to lose another one as well."

Gwenda said they had been enjoying a "fantastic" holiday until the tidal waves struck the island, following an earthquake off Indonesia.

The couple say it was only later, as they were meeting other holidaymakers at the airport and on the plane back to Britain, that they realised the full scale of the catastrophe.

Neil, also 48, said some other passengers were only wearing pyjamas and were given clothes to wear by other passengers. "We were really fortunate," he said.

Updated: 10:21 Thursday, December 30, 2004