Did you know today is the 20th anniversary of the Boxing Day Tsunami?
On Dec. 26, 2004, a major earthquake in Indonesia created a massive tsunami with waves up to 100 feet high. The tsunami swamped the coasts along the Indian Ocean, inflicting wide-scale destruction and killing an estimated 250,000 people in 14 countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.
The Boxing Day Tsunami, as it came to be known, is one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history.
Khao Lak, a Thai coastal village, was one of the places devastated.
The movie The Impossible (2012), starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland, is about the horrific true-life experiences of one family who was holidaying in Khao Lak at the time.
I was already living in the U.S. by then, but I have family in Penang (Malaysia). I also vacationed in the past in Langkawi (Malaysia) and Phuket (Thailand). These three islands—Penang, Langkawi and Phuket—saw extensive damage from the tsunami. Phuket is only about 50 miles south of Khao Lak.
The quote in the graphic above is from “Tsunami.” The story is about a couple who return to Khao Lak many years later after surviving the Boxing Day disaster.
You can find “Tsunami” in Joss Paper, my collection of horror short stories.