The only warning was a roar like a jet plane. Then, seconds later, a wall of water higher than the coconut trees swept away the palm-fringed fisherman's village of Arop like a child's sandcastle. The force hurled Lusien Romme into a tree, then dropped him into the lagoon with the matchwood that was all that remained of his home.
It was 7 p.m. on Friday and already dark when a series of harbour waves, or tsunami, levelled a remote tropical paradise known as one of the most idyllic regions of Papua New Guinea.
"It all happened in a flash. There was nothing left except for the coconut trees," Mr Romme said, nursing just two broken fingers. His six-year-old daughter, Martina, survived but his wife Monica was just one of the 600 bodies so far hauled out of the Sissano Lagoon.
Most of the victims of the seven metre wave - last night it was feared the dead could number up to 3,000 - were the old and the young of seven villages wiped off the map of Papua New Guinea's north coast. "The schools in Arop, Sissano and Warpu will be closed because we don't have any children," said the district disaster chairman, Dickson Dalle. "They are all dead."
An estimated 6,000 people are homeless along a 32km stretch of the coast in the West Sepik province after two submarine earthquakes, measuring 7 on the Rich ter scale, spawned the deadly series of tsunami. "We heard a large bang, then saw the sea rising up. We had no choice but to run for our lives," said Paul Saroya, who lost eight members of his family.
It was an act of God for which this intensely Christian country of 4 million was ill prepared. "I don't think we'll ever know what the real death toll is," said Andrew Summer of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship.
Businessman Rob Parer was in the damaged village of Aitape, where hundreds are being treated for their injuries, when the monstrous roar began. "It was like a jet taking off and then I knew it was a tidal wave," Mr Parer said. "Peo ple were sitting in their homes and then all of a sudden the homes started to move, then they were flying into the lagoon: men, women, children, dogs - the lot."
It was over in minutes. Then the screaming and yelling began as survivors, many suffering broken limbs and internal injuries, waited all night as local missionaries launched a rescue mission.
Brother Gary Hill, who has worked in Papua New Guinea as a health officer for 38 years, was clearing bodies from the lagoon on Saturday when he heard splashing. He found a woman with a badly broken leg who had struggled all night to keep her head above the water, surrounded by five bodies.
A fisherman, Jerry Apuan, said the lagoon was still choked with the dead. "In one place there were so many bodies together I had to move the boat slowly to pass through them."
Sister Francois from Aitape's Roman Catholic Mission said the dogs were starting to eat the bodies which, in the absence of coffins, were being covered with straw matting and floor covering. "The mission is focusing on the injured . . . but the dead are creating such a problem because it's such a hot climate," she said.
In Aitape, dozens of injured people, with multiple fractures and deep gashes, lay as overworked doctors tried to cope with only rudimentary supplies. "We need a lot of medication," said Dr Menno Swier. "We're running out of antibiotics, we need blood banks and we need surgeons."
An international relief effort is under way with Australian Hercules C-130 transport planes en route to set up a field hospital.