As the sun crested the horizon early on Boxing Day 2004, no one on Thailand’s east coast expected their life would be engulfed by chaos only a few hours later.
At 7:59am local time, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the northern end of Sumatra in Indonesia.
It triggered a series of powerful waves that would soon destroy swathes of coastline and more than 200,000 people across 14 countries, and displace many more.
This is the story of six people who witnessed, and survived, the wrath of the water.
A warning, this story contains details some readers may find confronting.
Rebekah
Rebekah Giles, a solicitor, and her boyfriend booked a last-minute holiday to Phi Phi Island after a busy December.
It was set out to be a little break before a trial she had in January.
Damien
After visiting Phuket, Damien Kloot and his partner had a few days spare and decided to go to Phi Phi Island.
They were on a last surf trip before they decided to try and start a family.
Alexa
Alexa Moses was in her 20s and was on holiday with her then-boyfriend.
They were spending the last few days of their trip in Khao Lak, north of Phuket.
Joe
Joe Giardina was on holiday with his wife, Ivana, and son, Paul, in Phuket.
“We called him the love machine because he was such a loving young man. Typical of Down syndrome,” Joe said.
Pym
Pym Boonyarattana owned a restaurant in Phuket but was on Phi Phi Island because she was looking to set up a cafe there.
Michael
Michael Tyrrell had just turned 21 and was on Phi Phi Island on Boxing Day.
He was up early running to the peak of the island and then went back down to the beach for a swim.
A wall of water
For some holidaying in Thailand, Boxing Day started with an early swim and run — a bid to shake the Christmas kilos and focus on their health.
For others, it began like the rest of their holiday with a lazy breakfast or sauntering through a local market.
Alexa Moses was putting on sunscreen in her hotel room in Khao Lak, north of Phuket, just before 10:00am when her ex-boyfriend said something chilling.
“He said, not loudly, quite quietly, ‘There’s a tidal wave coming,'” she told ABC iview’s I Was Actually There.
Slightly further south in Phuket, Joe Giardina, his wife, Ivana and son Paul were eating breakfast when he noticed water coming up onto the road nearby.
“I said, ‘My God, look at that. That’s an extraordinary wave. It’s come up onto the footpath’, but it kept coming,” he recalled.
“I didn’t anticipate this thing to develop into a wall of water.”
Alexa also described the wave as not a wave at all, but “more like a wall of brown water” heading straight for the hotel.
“We were on the third floor and it seemed to be coming about our balcony level a little higher,” she said.
“You’re just an animal. You’re a creature at that moment paralysed by your fear.”
When the water reached Joe and his family, his focus was to make sure his son Paul was safe.
But very quickly the power of the water took over, throwing them both over a wall.
“Everything just happened in the millisecond,” Joe said.
“Something hit me on the back of the head … and that’s when I went under and that’s when I lost Paul. I wasn’t able to hold onto him.”
Engulfed by the wave
Damien Kloot and his partner were on Phi Phi Island on Boxing Day for one last surf trip before they started a family.
By the time he realised what was happening, the water was moving at rapid speeds.
“I felt water on my feet and by the time I could say ‘What the’, it was rising up like a bathtub, really quick and I got swept [up],” he said.
“I got dragged down about 30 metres until eventually I got washed down and I went ‘Bang’ into the front of the restaurant.”
But not everyone was by the water to see the impending tidal wave. Many were caught off guard.
Lawyer Rebekah Giles, who was also on Phi Phi, was lying on her bed reading a magazine when the water washed it away.
“It was like a bomb. The water disintegrated everything in its path,” she said.
“I didn’t even see any water. I didn’t feel any water. I just immediately just went into a ball, closed my eyes and braced myself.
“I immediately was badly injured, just flying ass over head, over leg, over, you know.
“I don’t really know how long I was under the water, but it felt like an eternity and it was just sheer luck that I stayed conscious.”
On the streets, panicked locals and tourists began trying to find higher ground.
“I saw people running past just screaming and I thought, terrorist attack,” Michael Tyrell said, who was also on holiday on Phi Phi Island.
“Looking down and seeing something crash buildings. I was just off running, following everyone, dodging, weaving.”
For those caught in the wave’s grip, getting out was impossible.
Joe became pinned by something before the water washed over him.
“The time came when you couldn’t hold your breath anymore and I just opened my mouth,” he said.
“There was no struggle at all from me. That’s the last thing I recall.”
‘I screamed her name’
As the water began to retreat Pym Boonyarattana, who owned a restaurant in Phuket but was on Phi Phi at the time, was shocked by some people’s reactions.
“The first thing I saw, the ATM is falling and people searching for money,” she recalled.
“In that time I don’t think the money will help your life.”
As the initial threat passed, many were able to take stock of their injuries or begin looking for missing loved ones.
“I had broken so many bones quite quickly, I never even imagined that water could inflict such damage,” Rebekah said.
“[Then] the island sort of came alive and there was just the most harrowing screaming.”
Damien’s cries were part of that chorus.
“After the waves subsided, I only had one thought in my head and that was to find my partner,” he said.
“I screamed her name. I screamed, I screamed, I screamed, I screamed.
“There was definitely a lot of tears. I’d just break down every 15 minutes, just lose it and then snap myself back into it and focus back on the task and not give up.”
Despite being overwhelmed by the water, Joe survived but with significant injuries to his hand, ribs and lungs.
“I was in quite bad shape, but the emotion of not knowing where Ivana was and Paul was, overrode any pain that I might’ve been feeling at the time,” he said.
Uninjured leap into action
Michael was part of the cohort who’d escaped injury and, after seeing the level of destruction and carnage, did whatever he could to help.
“I couldn’t sit there and hear those screams because I think they would haunt me for life,” he said.
“One of the first things I did is, they used to have these luggage trolleys there and I got someone in there and then I moved them to a higher hill.
“Then I started to see more dead people, it was like a cloak sort of comes over you.
“[My] body just was like, ‘OK, well this is the new normal for here and I’ve just got to be able to move on.'”
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In the midst of the nightmarish scene, Michael ran into two other Australians who were also helping rescue people. One of them was Damien Kloot.
“The fact that [Damien] was still out there pulling people, putting all of his stuff aside whilst helping others, was just inspiring, gives me goosebumps hey, just thinking about him,” he said.
Pym also went into the fray to help those she could, before acting as a translator for the medevac helicopters flying the most injured back to the mainland.
Worst fears confirmed
In Phuket, Joe was taken to a hospital that was, like most in the region, overflowing with the injured.
“At the early stages, I didn’t know that I was going to make it because I was having really serious problems breathing,” he said.
“As it turned out my lungs were full of sand.”
While Ivana had made it safely to higher ground, his son Paul was found a couple of days later by Joe’s brothers-in-law in a makeshift morgue.
“That was horrible to know what had happened, but it is also some relief in the sense that you knew what had happened,” he said.
“The worst thing that could have happened is not to have found him.”
Damien felt the same way when his worst fears were also confirmed in the days after the disaster.
“For the next week, I’d just do the rounds of morgues and the hospitals,” he said.
“I found the tattoo on her foot and it was at that moment I knew I found her.
“It’s a sad moment, but it was also a moment of relief that I would be able to take her home.”
After being flown off Phi Phi Island, Rebekah was put on a medical evacuation flight back to Australia a few days later.
“In the days that passed, my flesh was decaying, rotting from the inside out,” she said.
“Being able to walk again was a big thing. Being able to use my right arm properly, being able to eat food.
“I had a colostomy bag for a long time. I mean that was just humbling in the extreme.”
While Australians and other tourists were able to flee the destruction, for locals like Pym there was no escaping the enormous task ahead.
“After the tourist, they have their flights from every country to pick up their own people to go back, but for us, we have to live with that, so how are we going to survive?” she said.
“You have to accept it. I’m going to be strong. I’m confident I want to talk about it because I know a lot of people out there [are] like me.”
Accepting the reality of trauma
Twenty years later, those who were there hold the trauma and grief alongside immense feelings of gratitude and resilience.
“I had a lot of insomnia for the first year. I just could not stop thinking about it,” Damien said.
“I am married and I have two children and if you’ve faced death head-on like that or seen death like that, it’s a certain amount of appreciation, which I can’t quite explain, but it’s something that is definitely life-changing.”
Joe has since gone back to Phuket to confront what happened there in 2004.
“Trauma is part of life and we need to grow with it, accept it. It’s the reality,” he said.
For Rebekah, her extensive injuries mean she lives with physical reminders of what happened that day.
But they carry another meaning too.
“I have a daily reminder of this second chance … I don’t like to use that phrase, but this life that I may not have had,” she said.
Stream the entire series of I Was Actually There on ABC iview, or watch tonight on ABC TV at 8pm.
You can also listen to the extended conversation with Rebekah Giles, now on the I Was Actually There podcast.
