The first waves of a tsunami that claimed the lives of over 200,000 people were chillingly captured in a video of an innocent man relaxing on a Thai beach.
A massive earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean on the day after Christmas in 2004 would go down in history for the area.
The Indonesian island of Sumatra was the epicenter of the earthquake.
It occurred underwater, causing a tsunami of ocean waves that ravaged numerous neighboring countries.
The earthquake, which happened 18 miles below the ocean’s surface as two tectonic plates met, had a magnitude of 9.1, making it the third greatest on the globe since 1900.
There was an 800-mile-long fissure formed between the Indian and Burmese plates.
It wasn’t just Indonesia that reported the earthquake; also, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
Despite how powerful the earthquake was, the tsunami that followed caused real damage to India and Indonesia.
About twenty minutes after the earthquake, waves of water were battering the nearby islands’ coasts.
In the Aceh region of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, waves that were 167 feet high caused three kilometers of floods.
Both natives and tourists were among the startling 227,899 people who were deemed dead or missing after the tsunami.
As a result, the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean was the worst ever recorded.
In addition, about 1.7 million individuals lost their houses, and the entire damage was estimated to be worth $13 billion.
However, it is astounding to think that a few little waves were the precursor to what eventually became the deadliest tsunami in history.
More astonishingly, a gullible traveler actually succeeded in filming these initial waves.
In the clip, a man says, “We were supposed to go caving this morning, had just about booked it.”
“But then, look, waves.”
He gestures to the ocean, where some moderate waves are picking up.
Later on, the waves start to appear more dangerous, even toppling a beach chair.
As the tourists start to leave the beach, a boat can also be seen shaking in the ocean.
Thankfully, Julian Hadden, who uploaded the video to YouTube a decade ago, verified that all the people in the clip made it out of the tsunami.
“In response to the many questions, all of us featured in this video are still alive,” he wrote in the caption.
“We were on the landward side of the island of Koh Ngai, Thailand, so we didn’t get a direct hit—rather the wave as it washed around the island.”
The idea that these first little waves could cause the same kind of destruction as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake is absolutely terrifying.