Hurley Awards for Outstanding Press Photography

On 17th July 1998 three ten metre waves slammed into the coast of the West Sepik province of Papua New Guinea, wiping entire villages off the map. I was one of the first to reach the remote Sissano Lagoon disaster area – and this photo of a young boy calling for his mother as he is taken aboard an evacuating aircraft, transmitted to AP by sat phone, was amongst the first to reach the outside world.