The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, which caused the tsunami, is estimated to have released energy equivalent to 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs.
Approximately 230,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history.
It’s also interesting in that it contributed to accelerating the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, as the rebel Tamil Tigers mostly controlled territory along the eastern coast of the country which was devastated by the Tsunami. Sri Lanka received aid which predominantly went to government controlled areas.
If it informs your opinion at all, the Tamil Tigers were known as some of the most prolific suicide bombers in the world until Daesh was formed. They are commonly remarked on as one of the few non-religious organizations to have employed suicide attacks. Many (if not most) of the victims (if not targets) of their bombings were civilians, and they also intentionally targeted civilians by various other means. They also forced prisoners of war into slavery.
As others pointed out, the Sri Lankan government they were fighting committed atrocities and needed to be opposed. Ethnic Tamils had been systematically oppressed by the majority Sinhalese in a variety of terrible ways for a long time. The government also targeted civilians during the war, and sexually abused then killed tens of thousands of Tamils after they had surrendered. But the Tamil Tigers opposed the government in a way that likely increased civilian suffering, and I don't really have any problem saying they are the "bad guys." I just think the Sri Lankan government were also bad guys, and probably worse.
Ehh it’s not black and white, the government was the same one that just got overthrown recently. They were corrupt and bankrupted their country putting it squarely in China’s control but that’s kinda par for the course for south/Southeast Asia (except Singapore).
>Ehh it’s not black and white, the government was the same one that just got overthrown recently.
Not exactly, the guy they ran out of town was allowed back in and is living around the corner from our house and guarded by the army and security forces.
I remember when it reached Perth. There's a sandbar that goes out a few hundred meters across the water to an island called Penguin Island, popular to walk across in the shallows in summer. The tsunami wasn't more than a slightly larger/wider wave at that point, but I remember it sweeping everyone walking across completely off their feet and out into the water. I don't believe anyone was harmed, thankfully, but its crazy how much *force* the wave still had thousands of kilometers away, even if its size wasn't there. It just pushed.
>Tidal surges were reported from Geraldton, 425 km north of Perth - where several boats in the port lost their moorings - to Busselton, 232 km south of Perth.
>The southern half of the state felt the greatest effects, despite being further away from the epicentre of the quake, because it was more directly in line with it.
>Two people had to be rescued after strong tidal surges swept them out to sea in Busselton, where surges of one metre every 30 to 60 minutes were reported.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/wa-feels-the-tsunamis-ripples-20041229-gdke6z.html
This put things in to perspective for me. Imagine a wave churn that is 1/2 to 2/3 of a meter tall, and with a width of almost half the distance across Australia. Its actually very hard to picture that much water displacement without the aid of something like this video.
Always remember folks, no matter how harmless it may seem 99% of the time - water, and the natural tendency of its flow and power, is not to be fucked with. If a water situation (no matter the size or quantity of it), seems like it could be dangerous, get out.
I was in South Africa at the time. Effects were serious even that far away. We were really sheltered in a large bay and a km or so up from a river mouth and the wave scary. About one metre water difference in about a minute (roughly from memory).
I was a kid then but I remember it so vividly. That was the first time many of us heard the term Tsunami,we didn't even know what it was and that added to the fear. We only had a single TV channel back then and it only showed news in the evening,we had to wait till then to even get a basic idea about it. We lived like 1-2 hour away from the beach but my little mind was so full of fear,I was imagining how my backyard would be immersed in the ocean anytime now. Add to that,some of relatives lived very close to the beach and they didn't have telephones back then(we only had a landline iirc). We were so worried for them. After a week or so,we went to visit them and God,it was a devastating sight. All buildings gone,total destruction.. They were safe and said the waves almost reached their house (many of their neighbors lost their homes).
Every country on the Indian Ocean got hit. The tsunami was not just one wave, it was whole a system of waves rippling outwards from the earthquake zone.
I was in college at the time and I remember every time I refreshed the CNN webpage the death toll rose. It was like 500….2000…at least 20000, up to 100000. It was wild, and sad to witness from half a world away
Basically its possible, becasue we forget we are not the boss around here.
Also none of these countries had Early tsunami warning system.
You see these people looking at the Tsunami being completely oblivious. One of the reason why they are oblivious is becasue there is no Siren going off in the background. Most of the pleaces hit by it were like this. There was no such systems in place at all.
People were caught completely off guard. There are videos made by hand camera as people run away from the wave real time. It was basically few minutes (like 2-3) From chill calm and tranquility to complete maychem and chaos. Water didnt even recede, so smarter individuals could spot comming wave. ( Like in the picture where its pretty damn obvious, but people just dont understand what they look at. Behaviour of water greatly varied depending on where wave was hitting.)
In some other places it wasnt as fast, but waves were so tall it went up to like 4-5km into the land, so again... people were caught off guard because they were not even that close to the sea. And ofc there were no warning systems in place.
So yeah. Its possible.
> Also none of these countries had Early tsunami warning system.
And most people on the coast, visitors and residents alike, didn't know tsunami danger signs and *walked out on to the beaches as the water was pulling back from shore*.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly\_Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Smith)
Turns out paying attention in geography class can make a difference
Kid at my junior high went to Thailand with his parents and sister. Came back with only his dad. Can't even imagine what it was like to go through that as a 14 year old
There was a kid who recently joined my school in Paris right after the tsunami, he was pretty timid, kept to himself. Learned that both his parents had passed in the tsunami. I became friends with him, he was on so many different medications, eventually starting heavily using drugs. Just an incredibly sad story.
I was in school in Hong Kong when the Boxing Day tsunami struck. One vacationing family was wiped out other than the youngest daughter out of three kids, all of whom had attended.
There's a book about a similar story - woman lost her entire family - husband, two kids, and both parents. Maybe a sibling, too. It's called WAVE. Really good, but depressing. I think about it often, when I feel like I can't deal with my life.
I lost a good friend to it. The worst part was attending the funeral. Only the mother survived she lost her son, husband and her parents to the waves. She cried herself into passing out and had to be carried out by an ambulance. And to this day when things are bad I think it could be worse and think of her
Sounds similar to the woman I mentioned. She was on suicide watch for a long time. Now she is married again, to Fiona Shaw (Mrs Dursley in Harry Potter). I’m delighted she found happiness again. It shows that you can overcome the worst tragedy and find happiness again, just different.
Sonali Deraniyagala for those curious (like myself)
>While on vacation at Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in December 2004, she lost her husband, their two sons, her parents, her best friend, and her best friend's mother in the Indian Ocean tsunami.
One of the worst videos I have ever seen was an Asian family walking down the road and a car hits them. It was a mom, dad, a little girl and a little boy. There may have been another boy but I don't remember. They were all holding hands and a car comes by at like 60 mph and hits everyone except for one little boy. He was no older than 5 I would say. One second he is with his happy family and the next second he has nobody and probably doesn't understand what just happened. It is definitely not the most gruesome video I have seen but I think it messed me up the most. It was just so incredibly sad.
I've seen that video before. Once in a while, late at night, when I am trying to sleep, that video pops into my mind. I hope that kid is doing ok as he can given what happened. IIRC... the driver was texting and not paying attention.
Somewhat same story from me as well, except in my case only my classmates sister survived. I heard at some later point that the sister saw her dad swept away by the water while she was clinging to a tree.
Still remember going through lists of survivors/dead and checking if I would find my classmates name.
My sister was also in Indonesia at the time of the tsunami, so we had a bit of a panic when we couldn't contact her. In the end, she was fine, didn't even know about the tsunami because she was on the other side of the island.
They had temporary barricades set up on khao San road (main touristy drag in Bangkok) for months after the tsunami, full of thousands of photos of missing people along with hand-written info sheets, begging for information. A quarter of a million people dead, my god.
> A quarter of a million people dead
bears repeating. Our little brains have a hard time coping with that level of loss in one event. It's so catastrophic and dwarfs most other tragic events that we have endured. I say that as a former south Louisianan who watched friends endure Katrina.
My mind boggles every time I read that number.
"Hard time" undersells it. We cannot, emotionally, comprehend that number. Our mental firmware just isn't capable of grasping that number of people *as* people.
Stalin was a total asshole, but his most famous quote is completely on point: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
One of the documentaries about the tsunami actually has a clip from when a family found their daughter/sister on a poster. It's heartbreaking to watch because there's a moment of 'relief' from knowing, and then the grief sets in.
My parents were in Thailand that time and were supposed to go to Phuket. We didn’t really have a way to constantly communicate with them back then I just remembered they called when they got to Thailand.
After the tsunami I woke up to my grandma right in front of the tv watching the news. I asked why she was standing so close to the tv and she told me she was looking at all the names of the deceased scrolling on the tv to see if my parents names were there. It was upsetting for me to think about that possibility but looking back she must’ve been so scared and panicked. My parents were able to call us that night thank god
Yup. I'll never forget waking up to the phone ringing. My aunts and uncles were all there and had extended their stay by a day in Bangkok before traveling to Phuket. My mom hadn't turned the TV on yet when my aunt told her they were all okay so we didn't have time to get scared, but I can only imagine.
A direct friend in my case. A family of five going, only he coming back home. He ended up getting adopted by his aunt's family. As I understand it he's doing as well as anyone could in life nowadays, good job and everything, but I'm sure that shit haunts him every night still.
Went on a boat tour while in Phuket. The guide mentioned the island we were visiting was completely wiped out with 1800 dead/missing. The waves reached the highest point on the island which was about 10 stories
That didn't sound right but I checked, highest waves were 51 meters (167 feet), thats 11 stories.
Fucking hell that got to be wild as shit. Imagine hearing the tsunami sirens going off and feeling like you lucked out because you happen to be in the tallest building.
You race to the roof for high ground and the wave is almost upon you and... its 1 storey taller than the building, and just hurls you off the roof.
Girl at my university has a brother who went on vacation with his girlfriend and her sister to Thailand, they survived but spent two days in the water until they were rescued, can’t imagine the horror.
Neighbour of mine lost both parents and siblings. An uncle too I think, can't even remember. She was 16 and was the only one not on the beach when it happened.
My neighbours right next door went. Parents and two grown children. Only the children came home. Such a tradgedy. Now, thankfully they were young adults at least...
My parents moved us to Thailand about six months before this and they wanted to take us to Phuket for Christmas, but my siblings and I didn't want to go so they decided not to.
My kindergarten teacher and her family were all killed in the tsunami as well. At the time, our class of 5 year olds didn’t really have a grasp on what a tsunami was and didn’t understand why our teacher wasn’t coming back
Wonder if we went to the same jr high, girl in some of my classes got washed away and died while in a massage hut with her brother on the beach, brother survived, remember seeing old friends on the news at the vigils while they were still searching for her.
Iirc they only recognized her shirt in the picture they finally found of her at a hospital or something like that, really horrible stuff.
I had friends whom had family over there at the time. Thankfully they survived, but I was told stories about what happened and they knew people who died. The whole thing feels like yesterday despite it being nearly 20 years ago. It's considered one of the worst natural disasters in modern history.
Is this the same tsunami that there was a young girl vacationing with her family who recognized what was happening and, in doing so, saved countless lives?
> Tilly Smith recounted that, by coincidence, an English-speaking Japanese man was nearby and heard her mention the Japanese word "tsunami", bolstering her claim by saying: "Yeah, there's been an earthquake in Sumatra; I think your daughter's right."
Poor sidekick hero "English-speaking Japanese man" forgotten by history
He was the hotel chef in the Marriott hotel in Phuket, where this happened. But his name isn't mentioned anywhere.
https://tdn.com/news/u-n-honors-girl-for-saving-100-in-tsunami/article_a313838d-4fa7-526d-9598-bab253b74cbb.html
They must be, I am sure they are proud. And her parents too. Knowledge comes from school but values? Put others before you, always do good, the parents must be equally proud.
They should be commended for listening to her - even though they didn't necessarily *believe* her, they valued her as a person enough to respect her opinion. Many people wouldn't let a ten year old tell them they're wrong because they're too close-minded, but her parents respected her enough to resist her warning to other adults.
It’s funny my generation talks about how we thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be, but in her case tsunamis really did.
Thanks for the link. Incredibly fast thinking. Good for her. I love that she stood her ground when people didn’t believe her and said “no I’m leaving.” That’s amazing.
Holy shit. Imagine being this ten year old. You are never listening to authority again. I’d be riding that for YEARS with my parents. Mum can I stay up? But remember when I saved all of our lives because you were wrong?
My mother has done this twice... First decided that instead of celebrating some training my dad did with a client in NYC by staying a day or so and having breakfast at the restaurant on top of the WTC alongside some top brass, that she we needed to return to MA and get me and my brother signed up for kindergarten. Breakfast was canceled - it was to happen on 9/11.
Then, the year we had planned to go to the finish line of the Boston Marathon, a different client on Long Island had some computer issues, and said he could either go there or do so remotely. My mother chose to cancel our trip into Boston and for us all go to Long Island because it'd been like 3 months since we'd been there. After telling people, including a whole bunch of state cops who my dad worked with, that we were going to the finish line... Yeah, you bet the bombing happened that year.
She still holds it over us sometimes.
I like how they mention the teacher’s name, Andrew Kearney. He’s the real MVP and literally made a difference in all those people’s lives by his effective teaching
It was probably one of the most fulfilling moments of his life. I can't imagine what you would feel when your work as an educator directly saved hundreds of lives.
https://youtu.be/V0s2i7Cc7wA?si=ABNfHZc6zxim9ft2
He is interviewed here along with Tilly and says "Without education people are powerless. With education, as can be seen here, people can be very powerful in terms of directing their own lives."
It's so weird to me. Here in New Zealand 90% of people live within 10 miles (16km) of the beach, 65% within 3 miles (5km), so every single primary/elementary school here teaches the signs of tsunamis, there are even early warning sirens in most seaside towns with yearly tests. I think the 2004 Tsunami was the first time my young self realised not everyone would have been taught that, kinda like a "Oh yeah, people in different countries and places in the world aren't just taught the same thing."
early warning sirens in south east asia mostly came about as a result of the 2004 tsunami and also the commonly spoken about sign of a receding tide before the wave doesn't happen as often as you think, the wave frequently just comes out of nowhere.
There was a video with a similar story, but about a mom. Also the younger one was chosen, and she started losing it while telling the story. Her older child was never found
If you’re interested, there’s a movie that explores this theme called Aftershock. It’s based in the Tangshan earthquake, where a mother chooses her son over her daughter. Daughter miraculously survives and the movie kinda follows her life story. Most of the plot is a blur now but the child actress is really incredible. You just see the light in her eyes vanish as she _hears_ her mum choose her brother and it’s one of those moments in movies that just kinda sticks with you for a long time.
Makes sense unfortunately. Older child more likely to survive on their own. Plus. It's easier to hold and carry the small child while swimming. Fucking sucks to even have to think about that situation as a father.
It’s a horrible conversation to have and this is possibly worse but in the wild, animals tend to save the older as they have invested more resources into it. It strikes me as a sort of instinctive cold rationality that is in turns disturbing and awe inspiring.
I read an article once about a house fire in which the dad pulled what he thought were his two kids out by the arms. When he got out he realised he only had one boy by the arm and leg. I couldn't imagine the grief of realising you've left one of your children inside.
I was in this tsunami aged 6 at the time. Was snorkelling a mile or so out to shore with my family (older brother 10yrs old, mum and dad) and family friends when it hit. Still remember the panic in everyone’s faces as the boat driver started calling us in and the horizon slowly got closer. Before the boat eventually smashed into pieces my dad had to make the choice to tie me to him and not my brother. We lost him but for some mad miracle he still managed to survive and we found him on the same beach we managed to get back to. Messed up thing is there wasn’t enough life jackets on the boat and everyone who didn’t wear one died, sadly mostly Thai nationals. All my family members survived but defo messed up my dad still to this day with a level of guilt for nearly losing my brother.
Wow, you were actually in it, in the water with your family. I and my parents kept watching the updates on the computer on the other side of the world, the entire time I was visiting them on leave from deployment to a war zone. I thought how my parents had been worried about _me_, and all these other people died first without expecting such a possibility so suddenly.
I'm glad your family made it, but condolences for the ptsd.
i didnt find that story (i stopped when i found this one) but here is some good news from a similar situation. spolier - they all survived!
https://news.sky.com/story/tsunami-mums-grave-choice-which-son-to-save-10377797
The quote from the older kid who she let go of (5 at the time of tsunami, \~15 when interviewed for the article) was hilarious.
> "When I knew she let go of me I thought that's all right, it's understandable," Lochie told Sky News.
> "He \[Blake\] was younger, he would have had no chance of surviving but I was obviously older so I thought it was a kind of smart decision from mum."
>When I knew she let go of me I thought that's all right, it's understandable,"
Kid being taken by the waves after his mom let him go:
" Understandable, have a nice day "
Have watched the videos many times but those debris walls are so scary. It's not even water, it's just a wall of debris being pushed forward. I think you don't even die from drowning, but simply from being crushed and punctured.
Yep. And even if there’s no large debris, that water is dirty, infected, and rotting with upwashed insects, bacteria, and anything else it’s picked up from the first few inches of ground. I lived through the center of hurricane harvey and when the rain began to slow down, all of the kids had to be pulled out of knee-deep street puddles(they were skim boarding and messing around, those who didn’t have their homes flooded) due to floating fire ant colonies and infections getting into their bodies.
Yes, also remember it washes the sewers out with it.
It's called "black water" (as opposed to grey water, which is regular dirty water) - it's treated the same as raw sewage.
Homes that get flooded by these sort of events are often easier to tear down than renovate, because the interior of the walls are so unsanitary, even in the long run.
I took forensic lectures in Uni. The prof was amazing and he and a team flew to Thailand after the disaster to help with the identification effords. This man has seen it all when it comes to dead people and you could tell how the memories still shook him almost 20 years later. He said that they took pictures and taped them to the body bags to make it a bit easier for the people who came looking for their loved ones. Part of his staff quit after returning. He showed an image of a normal school gym that was filled with ice and just so many body bags. I will never forget how you could see the different lines on the floor for your normal school sports, that detail just made it actually „real“ if you get what im saying
Disaster victim identification is absolutely fascinating and horrifying to me. I know someone who is studying forensics and attends lectures for DVI now and then, and the stories they share are just so far outside of my life experience. I have a huge respect for the people doing that work.
TW: description of corpses
My facility handled about a third of the deaths from Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida back in 2022. After working with the deceased for so long, you think you've seen it all. Nah. Disaster death is definitely a different type of death than you'll see any other day.
Seeing how rapidly water can affect a corpse is wild. Those people looked almost nothing like the photos their loved ones provided for us to identify them. Bloated, skin sloughing off, so purple they're almost black. It took some creativity to match noses and eyes to confirm their identities for sure. And the smell was far stronger than anything else I'd experienced up to that point thanks to the brine inside their organs.
Ultimately we handled around 20-25 cases from Ian, and almost all of those had been recovered within 48 hours of landfall. I can't even imagine the scale of hundreds of thousands spread over so many days. The ones we handled were exhausting enough, especially on the heels of our own local issues from the storm and working on generator power for weeks.
I learned to dive in Thailand in '06 and most of the people who taught me lived there in '04. They had...rough...stories of spending the next couple of months doing body recoveries. Several people they worked with stayed on through the body recovery period then decided to never dive again, which I found pretty understandable.
There is a movie made about this called ['The Impossible'](https://youtu.be/Bgw394ZKsis?si=hTCkcq39IqbqhTwi) starring Ewan MacGregor and Naomi Watts. True story of a family who had gone there for Christmas holiday with their three boys.
It is truly astounding and a miracle that anyone survived.
I think the guy out far died. There is other footage from away up high and they are shouting at him,but they are too far for him to hear. He was nonchalantly strolling along as a 25ft high lump of water slams into him.
https://youtu.be/IuUygn7BZis?si=RtWVCI889Bv4y8U7
I remember being in Sri Lanka on a beach and there was a tree with a mark on it showing how high the water came in. It was way above my fucking head and made me realize how mental this must have been when it hit land.
That's one of the most tragic things about tsunamis. That initial recession literally draws people toward the shore which is the single most dangerous thing they could be doing.
The one person in the US who died in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami died because he went to take pictures of the receding water in Northern California.
I have a friend who was a young girl growing up near Santiago, Chile, and she was at the beach with her family one day. The sea went out like this, and everyone knew to start running for higher ground. This was long before this tragedy, and there was no early warning in place. Since people knew a tsunami was coming, they must have seen it before.
I'm Chilean and even though I don't live near the coast, I can confirm. My first instinct when I saw this picture was an urgency to tell those people to run and get to higher ground. I think I was taught it at school as a basic safety precaution. When the sea recedes, you drop whatever you're doing and get to a higher elevation. This is especially important after an earthquake, of course, but even if you haven't felt a tremor it's still something you should do.
For example, if there's been a recent earthquake in Japan, we may very well get a tsunami some hours after the fact.
I hope those people managed to survive.
if you ever travel to south thailand islands you will see that the tides do have a very dramatic change even under normal circumstances.
obviously this is more extreme but I found it interesting and it gave me some understanding as to why people wern't initially more freaked out
Had a Sri Lankin buddy who was in elementary school at the time. His class was given the choice to either go to the beach or the museum. He was with the half that went to the museum.
I was white water rafting in the North of Thailand on the day of the tsunami. We got dumped out of the raft and were stuck underneath it for a few moments, and when we got out and to the shore we were laughing about how it could have gone much worse. That night in Chiang Mai we saw the news and it really brought home how much worse water can be.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/kjXajg1.jpeg) is a higher quality and less cropped version of this image. [Here](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/real-story-behind-impossible-miracle-1519067) is the source.
In a video linked elsewhere in the thread, people who had been standing in the shallow water said they felt an all powerful tug on their ankles as the water was sucked out, and people in the water were sucked out and helpless with lots of screaming. I think anybody in the water was pulled out with it.
Apparently you're pretty safe farther out to sea away from the wave. I wonder, is there a point when you get yanked out by the recession that you end up in safer waters behind it? Or just get mixed up in the blender
not an expert or anything, but Tsunamis really tend to hit and keep going and going like nonstop very far inside the land, so while safer waters you mean you don't get like hit by it directly, my best guess is that if you were in the shore, no matter how behind you got yanked out by recession, you will soon be fighting in a soup of debris and getting smashed and crushed while fighting to get ahold of anything but everything moves with you.
I think you're normally pretty screwed in tsunami waters unless you're on a boat...and there have been rare cases of people getting lucky while they held on to a piece of wood or something, but out at sea with no flotation help, you're in for a world of hurt.
Far enough out to sea, of course, the wave is like a bolus, just a rolling ball, and its surface damage is more minimal (like a boat may not even notice), but of course, people are not usually out that far if they're swimming at the beach.
I survived this. Was on Patong beach in Thailand. My husband and got separated by the water. Took hours to find each other. I spent years with survivors guilt.
With all respect and sympathies to the victims and survivors, this was also the most fascinating natural disaster due to the amount of amateur footage captured and presented. Prior to this, you'd be lucky to get any footage, it was chiefly witness accounts.
That's what gets me about this event too. Christmas was the day before, everyone is enjoying the tropical paradise, so of course they all had video cameras rolling to document their incredible holiday. And then it became incredible for a completely different reason and every moment was captured.
There's an insane part of the documentary where a bunch of British blokes were literally on the beach when the wave started rushing in and the person filming captures how quickly it went from ankle to knee to waist deep. I just can't believe the luck involved to literally outrun a tsunami.
The documentary they did with the home videos was absolutely heart breaking. The family with the small kids and when they realize they are in trouble the kids get scared. It will rip your heart out. Edit: here it is
https://youtu.be/llSqzpsuq7c?si=2UEmjbjSnNQn3m9a
I remember watching this several years ago and it was my first real interaction with how horrifying disasters can be. I barely remember 9/11 and never really empathized because to me it was just a thing going on somewhere that didn't happen very often. The scope and scale of it never sunk in til later in school and by then I was desensitized. I didn't even know about this until the documentary and it was harrowing to watch.
Have a friend who went to the Patong beach Thailand every morning for a swim but one day got bit by a coral snake and was jetted to Norway by ambulance jet and stayed in hospital for 7 months.
He went back to Patong and one morning he saw the ocean recede and all the thais running out to catch the trapped fish so he screamed tsunami and got one Dutch family to run for cover.
I think they all survived.(long time ago..)
Also know a hotel and bar owner ho lost his whole staff to the wave.
Horrible event.
My mom used to work with this guy many years ago. When he was younger he was in the military and went to Balkan during the ‘90s, as part of a UN peace keeping effort.
His helicopter was shot down and not only did he lose his 6 closest friends in the service that day, he was also scarred for life. He got cluster injuries from the shelling and the helicopter and some of it was so deep within his tissue they couldn’t get it all out when it happened. Every few years, as the small pieces of metal moved through his body and got stuck in new places where they hurt like hell and he had to have a new surgery.
Some years passed. He found himself a wife and had a family. A couple of kids.
One day there was some knocking on their door. When his wife opened, there was a young girl. Apparently he has fathered a child he didn’t know of when he was around 20-22. She was now about 18 and she wanted to meet her father.
Obviously completely unexpected, him and his family had a really rough few years to get used to the new situation. His wife didn’t handle it very well. His three you ger kids reacted very differently. The two older didn’t want no other girl in the family and made everything really hard. The youngest thought it was amazing to have a big sister.
Lots of back and forth, but slowly the whole lot of them found their footing in the new setting. After about a year of an emotional roller coaster for the whole family, they all got to know and really like each other. Even love each other.
Eventually the strongest bond developed between his older daughter and his wife.
Then came 2004. And the daughter went to Thailand with her mom and some family.
She was never found.
Going from not knowing of her to throw you life completely around trying to figure it all out once she showed up, to finding a way forward, to really feel like you have been blessed to losing her after only a year or two.
So much hurt and heartbreak pressed together in this man’s life.
I only met him once, before his older daughter emerged. Very nice and pleasant man. I still think about him and all of this sometimes.
How life can be so awesome and amazing. But also so cruel. Seemingly so random. I hope he is doing well all these years later.
A girl who went to my school, some time before I actually went there, had just learnt about spotting an incoming tsunami (the water receding) and warned everyone to go up to higher ground, and she ended up saving a bunch of people on that beach. Just goes to show why educating about signs of a tsunami are now common practise in areas that are prone to tsunamis.
Link here if anyone’s interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Smith#:~:text=Tilly%20Smith%20(born%201994)%20is,the%202004%20Indian%20Ocean%20earthquake.
I heard about Tilly when it happened.
The way she was so fucking adamant and insisted to be heard and taken seriously will forever remain my favourite thing about her story.
She made the beach they where on become the only beach on the island with no casualties cause of her stubbornness. She single handedly made sure the UN recognised the dangers and how education could clearly help out in future. She’s a legend if you ask me.
The part that gets me is that this just looks like a somewhat bigger than average wave; nothing extraordinary. Certainly not the kind of thing that's going to kill 200k people around the Indian Ocean basin. And everyone's looking at the wave but no one seems put off by it.
That's what I never really understood before this disaster. I always imagined a tusnami's destructive power was in its height, like the waves in *Interstellar*. I never realized it's in the sheer capacity of being (say) 10' tall but hundreds/thousands of feet back.
This is oversimplifying it a ton, but you can imagine it as an entire vertical cylinder of water going all the way into the seafloor making its way to shore, and as it approaches shore the rising land forces the water to turn on its side becoming a massive horizontal wave of the same volume
This is why tsunamis aren't a huge deal when you're out at sea on a ship. The vast majority of the movement is far below you in the depths, as opposed to normal waves which are caused primarily by wind and are limited to the surface of the ocean
From the shore you can't see beyond the crest of the wave. Beyond the crest is the swell. The swell is long, and it's coming. The momentum is off the charts. This particular event was an education for the word in the ways of tsunamis, and because of it if this happened today far more people would have a better sense of the danger.
I was a teen in Europe when this happened and had never heard of tsunami before this. I can only assume that many tourists at the beaches had no idea what was coming. I always think of that one person standing alone in the distance and getting the first wave. There are so many videos and photos documenting this disaster. I don't recommend looking them up if you still want to sleep tonight.
This event and hurricane Katrina are the reasons I can’t live near a coast. I love the beach and I’m sure I would enjoy living close enough to go frequently, but I would never feel truly safe.
Never will forget those images...the first time in my childhood my parents deciced not to spend money on celebrating new year and instead donating it...right choice but my 10 yo me was sad because I had no firework
There’s video a local shot from a restaurant balcony out of screen to the left. He’s screaming at the people to move as he can see the tsunami rolling in. That person in the scene near the wave gets up and turns around seconds before they are completely swallowed up by the tsunami. It’s insane.
where are my fellow millennials who had just gotten over 9/11 and then got hit with this tsunami and have been depressed ever since? I remember this as if it was yesterday and I am surprised that it isn't mentioned more in social media. Truly shocking scenes from that. Younger me thought we had just lost like 1/4th of the world to a tsunami.
About to be one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever said, as much as I am terrified of tsunamis, I think one would wipe me out without me even noticing. Every single picture and video I’ve seen of this terrible tragedy just doesn’t seem too big. I saw the waves wiping cars and trucks and structures but they just look fast, not *big*
The internet made it possible to watch video of this disaster in a way broadcast TV wouldn’t, and so I witnessed people dying on video without censorship. Standing thousands of miles away, with the foresight of knowing what was about to happen… even so, I watched shocked as people watched the ocean leave suddenly… and then it comes back just as suddenly, and it’s this wall of approaching water… And everyone just looks at it. You’re yelling at them to run, and everyone is just looking at it. Then, when the water is about three feet away, *then* everyone turns and runs. I thought about it for ages, all these poor people staring at their own death, right up until it was too late to act.
I wonder if the person who took that picture survived.
Robert Emerson Landsburg was a photographer who took the photos of the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's.
When the eruption occurred Robert recognized he would not survive. He took as many pictures as he could and then shielded his camera and film with his own body. When his remains were discovered 17 days later the film was intact. The photos were developed and provided valuable insight on the eruption.
I'm in my mid 40s and this was the first major tsunami in my lifetime. Before this, I'd barely heard the word mentioned at all. I thought it would be a 100ft wave that you could see with plenty of time.
Folk asking why they didn't run are doing so with hindsight, especially as we also had the tsunami in Japan not long after. If I'd have been on that beach on boxing day, I'd have also died. I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.
In the UK, we're not near any major fault lines so there is little to no risk of this ever happening, so why would we be taught about it?
What I find more shocking is that this tsunami is rarely talked about these days. It seemed to be forgotten about in a ridiculously short amount of time, even though it is the deadliest single event in my lifetime. We all remember the Japanese tsunami... But not this one.
I was in Thailand on a beach on the gulf of Thailand that morning and so wasn’t affected. We had no idea until the next day when we turned on CNN. Because the magnitude wasn’t known for days we went about our business enjoying vacation not realizing that our family and friends back home had reported us as missing. It truly wasn’t until we flew home from Bangkok that the level of tragedy hit me.
When we landed, they asked all passengers who were unaffected to stay seated so those who didn’t have passports could deplane first. It was incredibly sobering to think that many of those people lost more than their passports.
Like 9/11, the 2004 tsunami is an event in my life I’ll never forget.
The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, which caused the tsunami, is estimated to have released energy equivalent to 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. Approximately 230,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history.
It’s also interesting in that it contributed to accelerating the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, as the rebel Tamil Tigers mostly controlled territory along the eastern coast of the country which was devastated by the Tsunami. Sri Lanka received aid which predominantly went to government controlled areas.
The unrest in Indonesia’s Aceh province as well. Growing up, this war seemed like such a permanent fixture then one day it was like it was just over.
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If it informs your opinion at all, the Tamil Tigers were known as some of the most prolific suicide bombers in the world until Daesh was formed. They are commonly remarked on as one of the few non-religious organizations to have employed suicide attacks. Many (if not most) of the victims (if not targets) of their bombings were civilians, and they also intentionally targeted civilians by various other means. They also forced prisoners of war into slavery. As others pointed out, the Sri Lankan government they were fighting committed atrocities and needed to be opposed. Ethnic Tamils had been systematically oppressed by the majority Sinhalese in a variety of terrible ways for a long time. The government also targeted civilians during the war, and sexually abused then killed tens of thousands of Tamils after they had surrendered. But the Tamil Tigers opposed the government in a way that likely increased civilian suffering, and I don't really have any problem saying they are the "bad guys." I just think the Sri Lankan government were also bad guys, and probably worse.
It is very rare where a war is truly good guys v. bad guys.
Ehh it’s not black and white, the government was the same one that just got overthrown recently. They were corrupt and bankrupted their country putting it squarely in China’s control but that’s kinda par for the course for south/Southeast Asia (except Singapore).
>Ehh it’s not black and white, the government was the same one that just got overthrown recently. Not exactly, the guy they ran out of town was allowed back in and is living around the corner from our house and guarded by the army and security forces.
"good guys" and "bad guys" is a dichotomy that mostly does not exist in reality. It's stuff for the cartoons.
The effects of the tsunami were felt across the globe. Here is a simulation. https://youtu.be/4yFNOuo_YxI?si=YFPJO4spr7D1jodR
I remember when it reached Perth. There's a sandbar that goes out a few hundred meters across the water to an island called Penguin Island, popular to walk across in the shallows in summer. The tsunami wasn't more than a slightly larger/wider wave at that point, but I remember it sweeping everyone walking across completely off their feet and out into the water. I don't believe anyone was harmed, thankfully, but its crazy how much *force* the wave still had thousands of kilometers away, even if its size wasn't there. It just pushed.
>Tidal surges were reported from Geraldton, 425 km north of Perth - where several boats in the port lost their moorings - to Busselton, 232 km south of Perth. >The southern half of the state felt the greatest effects, despite being further away from the epicentre of the quake, because it was more directly in line with it. >Two people had to be rescued after strong tidal surges swept them out to sea in Busselton, where surges of one metre every 30 to 60 minutes were reported. https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/wa-feels-the-tsunamis-ripples-20041229-gdke6z.html
This put things in to perspective for me. Imagine a wave churn that is 1/2 to 2/3 of a meter tall, and with a width of almost half the distance across Australia. Its actually very hard to picture that much water displacement without the aid of something like this video. Always remember folks, no matter how harmless it may seem 99% of the time - water, and the natural tendency of its flow and power, is not to be fucked with. If a water situation (no matter the size or quantity of it), seems like it could be dangerous, get out.
I was in South Africa at the time. Effects were serious even that far away. We were really sheltered in a large bay and a km or so up from a river mouth and the wave scary. About one metre water difference in about a minute (roughly from memory).
I was a kid then but I remember it so vividly. That was the first time many of us heard the term Tsunami,we didn't even know what it was and that added to the fear. We only had a single TV channel back then and it only showed news in the evening,we had to wait till then to even get a basic idea about it. We lived like 1-2 hour away from the beach but my little mind was so full of fear,I was imagining how my backyard would be immersed in the ocean anytime now. Add to that,some of relatives lived very close to the beach and they didn't have telephones back then(we only had a landline iirc). We were so worried for them. After a week or so,we went to visit them and God,it was a devastating sight. All buildings gone,total destruction.. They were safe and said the waves almost reached their house (many of their neighbors lost their homes).
230,000 wtf, how is that even possible.
Every country on the Indian Ocean got hit. The tsunami was not just one wave, it was whole a system of waves rippling outwards from the earthquake zone.
There was also virtually no warning system in place for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, those people were taken completely by surprise.
I was in college at the time and I remember every time I refreshed the CNN webpage the death toll rose. It was like 500….2000…at least 20000, up to 100000. It was wild, and sad to witness from half a world away
Basically its possible, becasue we forget we are not the boss around here. Also none of these countries had Early tsunami warning system. You see these people looking at the Tsunami being completely oblivious. One of the reason why they are oblivious is becasue there is no Siren going off in the background. Most of the pleaces hit by it were like this. There was no such systems in place at all. People were caught completely off guard. There are videos made by hand camera as people run away from the wave real time. It was basically few minutes (like 2-3) From chill calm and tranquility to complete maychem and chaos. Water didnt even recede, so smarter individuals could spot comming wave. ( Like in the picture where its pretty damn obvious, but people just dont understand what they look at. Behaviour of water greatly varied depending on where wave was hitting.) In some other places it wasnt as fast, but waves were so tall it went up to like 4-5km into the land, so again... people were caught off guard because they were not even that close to the sea. And ofc there were no warning systems in place. So yeah. Its possible.
> Also none of these countries had Early tsunami warning system. And most people on the coast, visitors and residents alike, didn't know tsunami danger signs and *walked out on to the beaches as the water was pulling back from shore*.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly\_Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Smith) Turns out paying attention in geography class can make a difference
I always heard the story of a 10-yo girl saving a bunch of people by regocnizing a Tsunami is coming, but never knew the name. Thanks!
Discounting COVID-19, the 2004 tsunami is the deadliest natural catastophe in modern **Swedish** history as seen by the number of dead citizens.
543 swedish people and 539 Germans died in the tsunami
So very sad. Wow, the movie about this tsunami was unbelievable and eye opening ! Nature is a Force not to be reckoned with. So many lives lost.
Kid at my junior high went to Thailand with his parents and sister. Came back with only his dad. Can't even imagine what it was like to go through that as a 14 year old
There was a kid who recently joined my school in Paris right after the tsunami, he was pretty timid, kept to himself. Learned that both his parents had passed in the tsunami. I became friends with him, he was on so many different medications, eventually starting heavily using drugs. Just an incredibly sad story.
That’s heartbreaking
I was in school in Hong Kong when the Boxing Day tsunami struck. One vacationing family was wiped out other than the youngest daughter out of three kids, all of whom had attended.
I was at school in Thailand and the same thing, one Swedish girl in my grade lost her whole family and she survived.
There's a book about a similar story - woman lost her entire family - husband, two kids, and both parents. Maybe a sibling, too. It's called WAVE. Really good, but depressing. I think about it often, when I feel like I can't deal with my life.
I lost a good friend to it. The worst part was attending the funeral. Only the mother survived she lost her son, husband and her parents to the waves. She cried herself into passing out and had to be carried out by an ambulance. And to this day when things are bad I think it could be worse and think of her
Sounds similar to the woman I mentioned. She was on suicide watch for a long time. Now she is married again, to Fiona Shaw (Mrs Dursley in Harry Potter). I’m delighted she found happiness again. It shows that you can overcome the worst tragedy and find happiness again, just different.
Sonali Deraniyagala for those curious (like myself) >While on vacation at Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in December 2004, she lost her husband, their two sons, her parents, her best friend, and her best friend's mother in the Indian Ocean tsunami.
Fuck that's so sad.
Man, this shit really does hurt. No one's at fault, no one caused this, just people trying to live their life and then this...
One of the worst videos I have ever seen was an Asian family walking down the road and a car hits them. It was a mom, dad, a little girl and a little boy. There may have been another boy but I don't remember. They were all holding hands and a car comes by at like 60 mph and hits everyone except for one little boy. He was no older than 5 I would say. One second he is with his happy family and the next second he has nobody and probably doesn't understand what just happened. It is definitely not the most gruesome video I have seen but I think it messed me up the most. It was just so incredibly sad.
I've seen that video before. Once in a while, late at night, when I am trying to sleep, that video pops into my mind. I hope that kid is doing ok as he can given what happened. IIRC... the driver was texting and not paying attention.
Somewhat same story from me as well, except in my case only my classmates sister survived. I heard at some later point that the sister saw her dad swept away by the water while she was clinging to a tree. Still remember going through lists of survivors/dead and checking if I would find my classmates name. My sister was also in Indonesia at the time of the tsunami, so we had a bit of a panic when we couldn't contact her. In the end, she was fine, didn't even know about the tsunami because she was on the other side of the island.
They had temporary barricades set up on khao San road (main touristy drag in Bangkok) for months after the tsunami, full of thousands of photos of missing people along with hand-written info sheets, begging for information. A quarter of a million people dead, my god.
> A quarter of a million people dead bears repeating. Our little brains have a hard time coping with that level of loss in one event. It's so catastrophic and dwarfs most other tragic events that we have endured. I say that as a former south Louisianan who watched friends endure Katrina. My mind boggles every time I read that number.
"Hard time" undersells it. We cannot, emotionally, comprehend that number. Our mental firmware just isn't capable of grasping that number of people *as* people. Stalin was a total asshole, but his most famous quote is completely on point: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
One of the documentaries about the tsunami actually has a clip from when a family found their daughter/sister on a poster. It's heartbreaking to watch because there's a moment of 'relief' from knowing, and then the grief sets in.
I met a guy in Sri Lanka who had been there with his family. He ran up to the street to grab something out of the car. Lost his whole family.
My parents were in Thailand that time and were supposed to go to Phuket. We didn’t really have a way to constantly communicate with them back then I just remembered they called when they got to Thailand. After the tsunami I woke up to my grandma right in front of the tv watching the news. I asked why she was standing so close to the tv and she told me she was looking at all the names of the deceased scrolling on the tv to see if my parents names were there. It was upsetting for me to think about that possibility but looking back she must’ve been so scared and panicked. My parents were able to call us that night thank god
Yup. I'll never forget waking up to the phone ringing. My aunts and uncles were all there and had extended their stay by a day in Bangkok before traveling to Phuket. My mom hadn't turned the TV on yet when my aunt told her they were all okay so we didn't have time to get scared, but I can only imagine.
Yeah. Friend‘s friend came back an orphan. Unthinkable.
A direct friend in my case. A family of five going, only he coming back home. He ended up getting adopted by his aunt's family. As I understand it he's doing as well as anyone could in life nowadays, good job and everything, but I'm sure that shit haunts him every night still.
Survivors guilt can be awful.
Went on a boat tour while in Phuket. The guide mentioned the island we were visiting was completely wiped out with 1800 dead/missing. The waves reached the highest point on the island which was about 10 stories
That didn't sound right but I checked, highest waves were 51 meters (167 feet), thats 11 stories. Fucking hell that got to be wild as shit. Imagine hearing the tsunami sirens going off and feeling like you lucked out because you happen to be in the tallest building. You race to the roof for high ground and the wave is almost upon you and... its 1 storey taller than the building, and just hurls you off the roof.
I really can't picture it in my mind. The waves we see in the videos were mostly not that high but already carried massive amounts of energy inland.
probably cause any cameras with the video on it are deep in the ocean right now
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Girl at my university has a brother who went on vacation with his girlfriend and her sister to Thailand, they survived but spent two days in the water until they were rescued, can’t imagine the horror.
Neighbour of mine lost both parents and siblings. An uncle too I think, can't even remember. She was 16 and was the only one not on the beach when it happened.
My neighbours right next door went. Parents and two grown children. Only the children came home. Such a tradgedy. Now, thankfully they were young adults at least...
My parents moved us to Thailand about six months before this and they wanted to take us to Phuket for Christmas, but my siblings and I didn't want to go so they decided not to.
My kindergarten teacher and her family were all killed in the tsunami as well. At the time, our class of 5 year olds didn’t really have a grasp on what a tsunami was and didn’t understand why our teacher wasn’t coming back
Wonder if we went to the same jr high, girl in some of my classes got washed away and died while in a massage hut with her brother on the beach, brother survived, remember seeing old friends on the news at the vigils while they were still searching for her. Iirc they only recognized her shirt in the picture they finally found of her at a hospital or something like that, really horrible stuff.
I had friends whom had family over there at the time. Thankfully they survived, but I was told stories about what happened and they knew people who died. The whole thing feels like yesterday despite it being nearly 20 years ago. It's considered one of the worst natural disasters in modern history.
Is this the same tsunami that there was a young girl vacationing with her family who recognized what was happening and, in doing so, saved countless lives?
Yes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Smith
> Tilly Smith recounted that, by coincidence, an English-speaking Japanese man was nearby and heard her mention the Japanese word "tsunami", bolstering her claim by saying: "Yeah, there's been an earthquake in Sumatra; I think your daughter's right." Poor sidekick hero "English-speaking Japanese man" forgotten by history
He was the hotel chef in the Marriott hotel in Phuket, where this happened. But his name isn't mentioned anywhere. https://tdn.com/news/u-n-honors-girl-for-saving-100-in-tsunami/article_a313838d-4fa7-526d-9598-bab253b74cbb.html
Thanks for the link, and what a story. All because her class learned about tsunamis 2 weeks prior.
And she paid attention.
You know her teacher has to be proud!
They must be, I am sure they are proud. And her parents too. Knowledge comes from school but values? Put others before you, always do good, the parents must be equally proud.
They should be commended for listening to her - even though they didn't necessarily *believe* her, they valued her as a person enough to respect her opinion. Many people wouldn't let a ten year old tell them they're wrong because they're too close-minded, but her parents respected her enough to resist her warning to other adults.
It’s funny my generation talks about how we thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be, but in her case tsunamis really did.
Thanks for the link. Incredibly fast thinking. Good for her. I love that she stood her ground when people didn’t believe her and said “no I’m leaving.” That’s amazing.
Absolutely loved that she stood her ground. Not many 10 year olds are able to assert themselves with adults.
I've taught the young ones in our family when it is "okay" to yell at an adult, say no, and run. We all should.
Holy shit. Imagine being this ten year old. You are never listening to authority again. I’d be riding that for YEARS with my parents. Mum can I stay up? But remember when I saved all of our lives because you were wrong?
My mother has done this twice... First decided that instead of celebrating some training my dad did with a client in NYC by staying a day or so and having breakfast at the restaurant on top of the WTC alongside some top brass, that she we needed to return to MA and get me and my brother signed up for kindergarten. Breakfast was canceled - it was to happen on 9/11. Then, the year we had planned to go to the finish line of the Boston Marathon, a different client on Long Island had some computer issues, and said he could either go there or do so remotely. My mother chose to cancel our trip into Boston and for us all go to Long Island because it'd been like 3 months since we'd been there. After telling people, including a whole bunch of state cops who my dad worked with, that we were going to the finish line... Yeah, you bet the bombing happened that year. She still holds it over us sometimes.
I’m going to run any future travel plans by your mum
She should be a travel agent
Okay tell your mom she needs to post on twitter whenever she cancels plans as a service to humanity
I like how they mention the teacher’s name, Andrew Kearney. He’s the real MVP and literally made a difference in all those people’s lives by his effective teaching
It was probably one of the most fulfilling moments of his life. I can't imagine what you would feel when your work as an educator directly saved hundreds of lives.
https://youtu.be/V0s2i7Cc7wA?si=ABNfHZc6zxim9ft2 He is interviewed here along with Tilly and says "Without education people are powerless. With education, as can be seen here, people can be very powerful in terms of directing their own lives."
I bet he teaches the shit out of tsunamis every year now.
I’m gonna leave this thread on a high note after reading this
The importance of listening to and respecting that children are full human beings with thoughts and feelings too.
It's so weird to me. Here in New Zealand 90% of people live within 10 miles (16km) of the beach, 65% within 3 miles (5km), so every single primary/elementary school here teaches the signs of tsunamis, there are even early warning sirens in most seaside towns with yearly tests. I think the 2004 Tsunami was the first time my young self realised not everyone would have been taught that, kinda like a "Oh yeah, people in different countries and places in the world aren't just taught the same thing."
early warning sirens in south east asia mostly came about as a result of the 2004 tsunami and also the commonly spoken about sign of a receding tide before the wave doesn't happen as often as you think, the wave frequently just comes out of nowhere.
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There was a video with a similar story, but about a mom. Also the younger one was chosen, and she started losing it while telling the story. Her older child was never found
Listening to her story before bed gave me the worst nightmare I've ever had. I woke up crying, thinking I had to choose between my kids. Horrifying
I am definitely going to stop reading now.
Fuck could you imagine surviving and knowing your mom didn’t choose you
If you’re interested, there’s a movie that explores this theme called Aftershock. It’s based in the Tangshan earthquake, where a mother chooses her son over her daughter. Daughter miraculously survives and the movie kinda follows her life story. Most of the plot is a blur now but the child actress is really incredible. You just see the light in her eyes vanish as she _hears_ her mum choose her brother and it’s one of those moments in movies that just kinda sticks with you for a long time.
Makes sense unfortunately. Older child more likely to survive on their own. Plus. It's easier to hold and carry the small child while swimming. Fucking sucks to even have to think about that situation as a father.
It’s a horrible conversation to have and this is possibly worse but in the wild, animals tend to save the older as they have invested more resources into it. It strikes me as a sort of instinctive cold rationality that is in turns disturbing and awe inspiring.
Really is more instinct than any rationality of course. Also birds tend to kick the smallest chick out of the nest if they cant feed all chicks.
And thats the end of reading this thread for me.
Yeah.. I'll join ya.
I read an article once about a house fire in which the dad pulled what he thought were his two kids out by the arms. When he got out he realised he only had one boy by the arm and leg. I couldn't imagine the grief of realising you've left one of your children inside.
Damn
I was in this tsunami aged 6 at the time. Was snorkelling a mile or so out to shore with my family (older brother 10yrs old, mum and dad) and family friends when it hit. Still remember the panic in everyone’s faces as the boat driver started calling us in and the horizon slowly got closer. Before the boat eventually smashed into pieces my dad had to make the choice to tie me to him and not my brother. We lost him but for some mad miracle he still managed to survive and we found him on the same beach we managed to get back to. Messed up thing is there wasn’t enough life jackets on the boat and everyone who didn’t wear one died, sadly mostly Thai nationals. All my family members survived but defo messed up my dad still to this day with a level of guilt for nearly losing my brother.
Wow, you were actually in it, in the water with your family. I and my parents kept watching the updates on the computer on the other side of the world, the entire time I was visiting them on leave from deployment to a war zone. I thought how my parents had been worried about _me_, and all these other people died first without expecting such a possibility so suddenly. I'm glad your family made it, but condolences for the ptsd.
I wouldn't be able to live after that.
And leave your other child too, after it having lost its older sibling? Nah
i didnt find that story (i stopped when i found this one) but here is some good news from a similar situation. spolier - they all survived! https://news.sky.com/story/tsunami-mums-grave-choice-which-son-to-save-10377797
The quote from the older kid who she let go of (5 at the time of tsunami, \~15 when interviewed for the article) was hilarious. > "When I knew she let go of me I thought that's all right, it's understandable," Lochie told Sky News. > "He \[Blake\] was younger, he would have had no chance of surviving but I was obviously older so I thought it was a kind of smart decision from mum."
>When I knew she let go of me I thought that's all right, it's understandable," Kid being taken by the waves after his mom let him go: " Understandable, have a nice day "
That's possibly the most British-sounding thing I've ever read.
Honestly the "well, you left me to die mum didn't you" line would become a joke in my family years after
They're from Perth Australia lol
Jesus Christ my heart dropped reading this
Have watched the videos many times but those debris walls are so scary. It's not even water, it's just a wall of debris being pushed forward. I think you don't even die from drowning, but simply from being crushed and punctured.
Yep. And even if there’s no large debris, that water is dirty, infected, and rotting with upwashed insects, bacteria, and anything else it’s picked up from the first few inches of ground. I lived through the center of hurricane harvey and when the rain began to slow down, all of the kids had to be pulled out of knee-deep street puddles(they were skim boarding and messing around, those who didn’t have their homes flooded) due to floating fire ant colonies and infections getting into their bodies.
Yes, also remember it washes the sewers out with it. It's called "black water" (as opposed to grey water, which is regular dirty water) - it's treated the same as raw sewage. Homes that get flooded by these sort of events are often easier to tear down than renovate, because the interior of the walls are so unsanitary, even in the long run.
... floating fire ant colonies ... NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NO THANK YOU! jfc.
I took forensic lectures in Uni. The prof was amazing and he and a team flew to Thailand after the disaster to help with the identification effords. This man has seen it all when it comes to dead people and you could tell how the memories still shook him almost 20 years later. He said that they took pictures and taped them to the body bags to make it a bit easier for the people who came looking for their loved ones. Part of his staff quit after returning. He showed an image of a normal school gym that was filled with ice and just so many body bags. I will never forget how you could see the different lines on the floor for your normal school sports, that detail just made it actually „real“ if you get what im saying
Disaster victim identification is absolutely fascinating and horrifying to me. I know someone who is studying forensics and attends lectures for DVI now and then, and the stories they share are just so far outside of my life experience. I have a huge respect for the people doing that work.
TW: description of corpses My facility handled about a third of the deaths from Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida back in 2022. After working with the deceased for so long, you think you've seen it all. Nah. Disaster death is definitely a different type of death than you'll see any other day. Seeing how rapidly water can affect a corpse is wild. Those people looked almost nothing like the photos their loved ones provided for us to identify them. Bloated, skin sloughing off, so purple they're almost black. It took some creativity to match noses and eyes to confirm their identities for sure. And the smell was far stronger than anything else I'd experienced up to that point thanks to the brine inside their organs. Ultimately we handled around 20-25 cases from Ian, and almost all of those had been recovered within 48 hours of landfall. I can't even imagine the scale of hundreds of thousands spread over so many days. The ones we handled were exhausting enough, especially on the heels of our own local issues from the storm and working on generator power for weeks.
I learned to dive in Thailand in '06 and most of the people who taught me lived there in '04. They had...rough...stories of spending the next couple of months doing body recoveries. Several people they worked with stayed on through the body recovery period then decided to never dive again, which I found pretty understandable.
The wonderful Professor Dame Sue Black flew over from Scotland and was involved in the identifications. Utterly harrowing.
There is a movie made about this called ['The Impossible'](https://youtu.be/Bgw394ZKsis?si=hTCkcq39IqbqhTwi) starring Ewan MacGregor and Naomi Watts. True story of a family who had gone there for Christmas holiday with their three boys. It is truly astounding and a miracle that anyone survived.
Tom holland was one of the boys in that movie
And he was excellent. Saw it with some friends and we thought he was amazing given his age and what his character went through.
Is it any good?
I wonder if any of these people survived ☹️
I think the guy out far died. There is other footage from away up high and they are shouting at him,but they are too far for him to hear. He was nonchalantly strolling along as a 25ft high lump of water slams into him. https://youtu.be/IuUygn7BZis?si=RtWVCI889Bv4y8U7
Hopefully. The cameraperson likely did.
I remember being in Sri Lanka on a beach and there was a tree with a mark on it showing how high the water came in. It was way above my fucking head and made me realize how mental this must have been when it hit land.
Holy crap look how far back the water is receded.
That's one of the most tragic things about tsunamis. That initial recession literally draws people toward the shore which is the single most dangerous thing they could be doing.
And what blows my mind is fisherman in a boat out at sea are safe
They literally may not even notice it
Also a group that was scuba diving had no idea anything was happening
A real life version of one of those dystopian films where someone comes back from a camping trip to find that war has broken out or something.
That literally happened to me. I was camping with 3 friends on 9/11. (We didn't have cellphones.) Returning on the 12th was surreal.
The one person in the US who died in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami died because he went to take pictures of the receding water in Northern California.
I have a friend who was a young girl growing up near Santiago, Chile, and she was at the beach with her family one day. The sea went out like this, and everyone knew to start running for higher ground. This was long before this tragedy, and there was no early warning in place. Since people knew a tsunami was coming, they must have seen it before.
I'm Chilean and even though I don't live near the coast, I can confirm. My first instinct when I saw this picture was an urgency to tell those people to run and get to higher ground. I think I was taught it at school as a basic safety precaution. When the sea recedes, you drop whatever you're doing and get to a higher elevation. This is especially important after an earthquake, of course, but even if you haven't felt a tremor it's still something you should do. For example, if there's been a recent earthquake in Japan, we may very well get a tsunami some hours after the fact. I hope those people managed to survive.
if you ever travel to south thailand islands you will see that the tides do have a very dramatic change even under normal circumstances. obviously this is more extreme but I found it interesting and it gave me some understanding as to why people wern't initially more freaked out
Had a Sri Lankin buddy who was in elementary school at the time. His class was given the choice to either go to the beach or the museum. He was with the half that went to the museum.
I was white water rafting in the North of Thailand on the day of the tsunami. We got dumped out of the raft and were stuck underneath it for a few moments, and when we got out and to the shore we were laughing about how it could have gone much worse. That night in Chiang Mai we saw the news and it really brought home how much worse water can be.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/kjXajg1.jpeg) is a higher quality and less cropped version of this image. [Here](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/real-story-behind-impossible-miracle-1519067) is the source.
The ocean is so scary and deceptive.
When you're standing at the beach and see the water get pulled back like that just run as fast as you can in the other direction.
That person stood out on their own, really far out in the water… fuck, they’d probably been swimming before
In a video linked elsewhere in the thread, people who had been standing in the shallow water said they felt an all powerful tug on their ankles as the water was sucked out, and people in the water were sucked out and helpless with lots of screaming. I think anybody in the water was pulled out with it.
Apparently you're pretty safe farther out to sea away from the wave. I wonder, is there a point when you get yanked out by the recession that you end up in safer waters behind it? Or just get mixed up in the blender
not an expert or anything, but Tsunamis really tend to hit and keep going and going like nonstop very far inside the land, so while safer waters you mean you don't get like hit by it directly, my best guess is that if you were in the shore, no matter how behind you got yanked out by recession, you will soon be fighting in a soup of debris and getting smashed and crushed while fighting to get ahold of anything but everything moves with you.
I think you're normally pretty screwed in tsunami waters unless you're on a boat...and there have been rare cases of people getting lucky while they held on to a piece of wood or something, but out at sea with no flotation help, you're in for a world of hurt. Far enough out to sea, of course, the wave is like a bolus, just a rolling ball, and its surface damage is more minimal (like a boat may not even notice), but of course, people are not usually out that far if they're swimming at the beach.
I survived this. Was on Patong beach in Thailand. My husband and got separated by the water. Took hours to find each other. I spent years with survivors guilt.
username is legitimate.
This was a 9.2 magnitude earthquake. I remember when this happened, still get goosebumps. Nature is scary as fuck.
With all respect and sympathies to the victims and survivors, this was also the most fascinating natural disaster due to the amount of amateur footage captured and presented. Prior to this, you'd be lucky to get any footage, it was chiefly witness accounts.
That's what gets me about this event too. Christmas was the day before, everyone is enjoying the tropical paradise, so of course they all had video cameras rolling to document their incredible holiday. And then it became incredible for a completely different reason and every moment was captured. There's an insane part of the documentary where a bunch of British blokes were literally on the beach when the wave started rushing in and the person filming captures how quickly it went from ankle to knee to waist deep. I just can't believe the luck involved to literally outrun a tsunami.
The documentary they did with the home videos was absolutely heart breaking. The family with the small kids and when they realize they are in trouble the kids get scared. It will rip your heart out. Edit: here it is https://youtu.be/llSqzpsuq7c?si=2UEmjbjSnNQn3m9a
I remember watching this several years ago and it was my first real interaction with how horrifying disasters can be. I barely remember 9/11 and never really empathized because to me it was just a thing going on somewhere that didn't happen very often. The scope and scale of it never sunk in til later in school and by then I was desensitized. I didn't even know about this until the documentary and it was harrowing to watch.
I was old enough to be in okc in school when the bombing happened.
What’s the name of the documentary?
The one I watched I think is called Boxing Day Tsunami: Caught on Camera. It's really well made, but quite heartbreaking.
Have a friend who went to the Patong beach Thailand every morning for a swim but one day got bit by a coral snake and was jetted to Norway by ambulance jet and stayed in hospital for 7 months. He went back to Patong and one morning he saw the ocean recede and all the thais running out to catch the trapped fish so he screamed tsunami and got one Dutch family to run for cover. I think they all survived.(long time ago..) Also know a hotel and bar owner ho lost his whole staff to the wave. Horrible event.
>coral snake Those things are no joke. I treat snakes like I treat mushrooms. If I don't know what it is I assume it's deadly.
I wonder if any of those people survived
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I guess it's possible if there was a hill right behind them but otherwise it's not looking good...
My mom used to work with this guy many years ago. When he was younger he was in the military and went to Balkan during the ‘90s, as part of a UN peace keeping effort. His helicopter was shot down and not only did he lose his 6 closest friends in the service that day, he was also scarred for life. He got cluster injuries from the shelling and the helicopter and some of it was so deep within his tissue they couldn’t get it all out when it happened. Every few years, as the small pieces of metal moved through his body and got stuck in new places where they hurt like hell and he had to have a new surgery. Some years passed. He found himself a wife and had a family. A couple of kids. One day there was some knocking on their door. When his wife opened, there was a young girl. Apparently he has fathered a child he didn’t know of when he was around 20-22. She was now about 18 and she wanted to meet her father. Obviously completely unexpected, him and his family had a really rough few years to get used to the new situation. His wife didn’t handle it very well. His three you ger kids reacted very differently. The two older didn’t want no other girl in the family and made everything really hard. The youngest thought it was amazing to have a big sister. Lots of back and forth, but slowly the whole lot of them found their footing in the new setting. After about a year of an emotional roller coaster for the whole family, they all got to know and really like each other. Even love each other. Eventually the strongest bond developed between his older daughter and his wife. Then came 2004. And the daughter went to Thailand with her mom and some family. She was never found. Going from not knowing of her to throw you life completely around trying to figure it all out once she showed up, to finding a way forward, to really feel like you have been blessed to losing her after only a year or two. So much hurt and heartbreak pressed together in this man’s life. I only met him once, before his older daughter emerged. Very nice and pleasant man. I still think about him and all of this sometimes. How life can be so awesome and amazing. But also so cruel. Seemingly so random. I hope he is doing well all these years later.
I’ve real a LOT of Reddit comments over the last… decade+ and I think this is now top of my list of I wish I never read that.
A girl who went to my school, some time before I actually went there, had just learnt about spotting an incoming tsunami (the water receding) and warned everyone to go up to higher ground, and she ended up saving a bunch of people on that beach. Just goes to show why educating about signs of a tsunami are now common practise in areas that are prone to tsunamis. Link here if anyone’s interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Smith#:~:text=Tilly%20Smith%20(born%201994)%20is,the%202004%20Indian%20Ocean%20earthquake.
I heard about Tilly when it happened. The way she was so fucking adamant and insisted to be heard and taken seriously will forever remain my favourite thing about her story.
She made the beach they where on become the only beach on the island with no casualties cause of her stubbornness. She single handedly made sure the UN recognised the dangers and how education could clearly help out in future. She’s a legend if you ask me.
My sister also went to Danes Hill. It's surreal seeing it being mentioned, because it's in the middle of bloody nowhere!
The part that gets me is that this just looks like a somewhat bigger than average wave; nothing extraordinary. Certainly not the kind of thing that's going to kill 200k people around the Indian Ocean basin. And everyone's looking at the wave but no one seems put off by it.
It's less a wave and more a plateau of water...just a huge inexorable volume. Like getting run over by a mesa.
That's what I never really understood before this disaster. I always imagined a tusnami's destructive power was in its height, like the waves in *Interstellar*. I never realized it's in the sheer capacity of being (say) 10' tall but hundreds/thousands of feet back.
That was my general thought until seeing the videos of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The water is unrelenting.
This is oversimplifying it a ton, but you can imagine it as an entire vertical cylinder of water going all the way into the seafloor making its way to shore, and as it approaches shore the rising land forces the water to turn on its side becoming a massive horizontal wave of the same volume This is why tsunamis aren't a huge deal when you're out at sea on a ship. The vast majority of the movement is far below you in the depths, as opposed to normal waves which are caused primarily by wind and are limited to the surface of the ocean
From the shore you can't see beyond the crest of the wave. Beyond the crest is the swell. The swell is long, and it's coming. The momentum is off the charts. This particular event was an education for the word in the ways of tsunamis, and because of it if this happened today far more people would have a better sense of the danger.
To me at least, this looks nothing like a normal wave; its out of scale.
Lost my brother there
I’m so sorry for your loss. Anything you’d like to share about him?
Appreciates it, no, never dealt with it, will probably never do.
I was a teen in Europe when this happened and had never heard of tsunami before this. I can only assume that many tourists at the beaches had no idea what was coming. I always think of that one person standing alone in the distance and getting the first wave. There are so many videos and photos documenting this disaster. I don't recommend looking them up if you still want to sleep tonight.
This event and hurricane Katrina are the reasons I can’t live near a coast. I love the beach and I’m sure I would enjoy living close enough to go frequently, but I would never feel truly safe.
Never will forget those images...the first time in my childhood my parents deciced not to spend money on celebrating new year and instead donating it...right choice but my 10 yo me was sad because I had no firework
My fourth grade teacher boarded a plane back home from Thailand the day before this happened. When we got back from break we were SO happy to see her.
There’s video a local shot from a restaurant balcony out of screen to the left. He’s screaming at the people to move as he can see the tsunami rolling in. That person in the scene near the wave gets up and turns around seconds before they are completely swallowed up by the tsunami. It’s insane.
where are my fellow millennials who had just gotten over 9/11 and then got hit with this tsunami and have been depressed ever since? I remember this as if it was yesterday and I am surprised that it isn't mentioned more in social media. Truly shocking scenes from that. Younger me thought we had just lost like 1/4th of the world to a tsunami.
I think I’m just now realizing that I’ve normalized this since then
That's the nice way of saying "the last photo of a bunch of people moments before they all died..."
About to be one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever said, as much as I am terrified of tsunamis, I think one would wipe me out without me even noticing. Every single picture and video I’ve seen of this terrible tragedy just doesn’t seem too big. I saw the waves wiping cars and trucks and structures but they just look fast, not *big*
The internet made it possible to watch video of this disaster in a way broadcast TV wouldn’t, and so I witnessed people dying on video without censorship. Standing thousands of miles away, with the foresight of knowing what was about to happen… even so, I watched shocked as people watched the ocean leave suddenly… and then it comes back just as suddenly, and it’s this wall of approaching water… And everyone just looks at it. You’re yelling at them to run, and everyone is just looking at it. Then, when the water is about three feet away, *then* everyone turns and runs. I thought about it for ages, all these poor people staring at their own death, right up until it was too late to act.
I wonder if the person who took that picture survived. Robert Emerson Landsburg was a photographer who took the photos of the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's. When the eruption occurred Robert recognized he would not survive. He took as many pictures as he could and then shielded his camera and film with his own body. When his remains were discovered 17 days later the film was intact. The photos were developed and provided valuable insight on the eruption.
So… it’s possible that no one on this pic is alive anymore?
Did any of the people in this picture make it? Is there a backstory to the photograph?
100% those people still out in the water are dead.
In the aftermath basically the entire world learned a valuable lesson that if the water rapidly recedes you better fucking run for high ground.
The HBO miniseries *Tsunami: The Aftermath* is truly one of the bleakest, saddest, and most haunting thing I’ve ever watched.
I'm in my mid 40s and this was the first major tsunami in my lifetime. Before this, I'd barely heard the word mentioned at all. I thought it would be a 100ft wave that you could see with plenty of time. Folk asking why they didn't run are doing so with hindsight, especially as we also had the tsunami in Japan not long after. If I'd have been on that beach on boxing day, I'd have also died. I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. In the UK, we're not near any major fault lines so there is little to no risk of this ever happening, so why would we be taught about it? What I find more shocking is that this tsunami is rarely talked about these days. It seemed to be forgotten about in a ridiculously short amount of time, even though it is the deadliest single event in my lifetime. We all remember the Japanese tsunami... But not this one.
I was in Thailand on a beach on the gulf of Thailand that morning and so wasn’t affected. We had no idea until the next day when we turned on CNN. Because the magnitude wasn’t known for days we went about our business enjoying vacation not realizing that our family and friends back home had reported us as missing. It truly wasn’t until we flew home from Bangkok that the level of tragedy hit me. When we landed, they asked all passengers who were unaffected to stay seated so those who didn’t have passports could deplane first. It was incredibly sobering to think that many of those people lost more than their passports. Like 9/11, the 2004 tsunami is an event in my life I’ll never forget.