Boxing day, 2004.
10 year old Tilly Smith was enjoying a day at Thailand’s Mai
Khao beach with her family when she noticed something odd.
Something strange.
The waves weren’t coming and going, they just started going.
The shore was receding, and the water was beginning
to foam where the waves broke the shoreline.
As she watched the ocean intently, it hit her.
Everyone on that beach was in terrible, terrible danger.
Tilly recalled learning about the warning
signs of tsunamis in geography class.
She urged her parents to leave, but why
would anyone listen to a 10-year-old?
Despite her father refusing to believe her, Tilly
followed her gut feeling, saving the lives of 100 people.
This tsunami would go on to take the lives of over
230,000 people— becoming the world's deadliest.
Let’s get into it!
As Tilly stood, watching the water pull away from the shore,
Tilly’s mind flickered back two weeks to her geography class.
Her teacher, Andrew Kearney, had shown her entire class an old
black and white video of a tsunami that hit Hawaii back in 1946.
Now, looking across the horizon on her vacation in
Thailand, she was sure that the signals were the same.
She said later that “it was the exact same froth, like you get on a beer.”
Tilly immediately turned to her mother and shouted “Tsunami,
there’s going to be a tsunami”, but her mother wouldn’t believe her.
“She didn’t react and just kept on walking”.
Tilly couldn’t let it go though.
She kept screaming at her parents, telling them to run over and over.
She was screaming “Please mum, please come back
with me … if you don’t … you won’t survive”.
Her father, unsettled by his daughter’s sudden hysterics, turned back
to inform lifeguards and staff at the resort where they were staying.
He said “You'll probably think I'm absolutely bonkers but my
daughter's completely convinced there's going to be a tsunami”.
Eventually with some coaxing, they managed to clear
the beach and get everyone inside the hotel’s lobby.
Tilly’s mom, Penny Smith, unaware of the warning sign her daughter
noticed, was the last on the beach before the nine metre wave
rose above the horizon and started stampeding toward them.
She screamed “get the kids!” to her husband, and as he turned to her,
he saw the first moments of the waves stampeding across the beach.
Over 100 people who were on the beach that day jammed
into the lobby of the JW Marriott Phuket Resort and Spa,
scrambling to get up the stairs to the second floor.
As the tsunami crashed against the side of the building,
the black, dunnish water streaming through the roads
and alleyways, other beaches were not so lucky.
After the sea finally calmed, Mai Khao beach was among the very
few beaches that suffered no loss of life at the end of the day.
For her bravery, Tilly was dubbed the “Angel on the Beach” and named
Child of the Year, in addition to an award from the UK Marine Society.
She also received the Thomas Gray Special Award for saving 100
lives on the beach that day, though Tilly credits her teacher,
Andrew Kearney, for giving her the knowledge she needed.
Tilly knew the warning signs of a tsunami, it
helps for us to understand how tsunamis work.
Tsunamis are a series of massive waves that radiate
out from an event that shifts a ton of water, like
an earthquake, or an underwater volcanic eruption.
Just like dropping a stone into a pond, multiple
ripples move away from the point of impact.
The word tsunami itself is Japanese, translated
directly to “harbour wave”, which makes sense.
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Unlike regular waves, which are moved by winds and can
only travel through the topmost levels of the ocean,
tsunamis move through the entire ocean, top to bottom.
Out in the deep ocean, Tsunamis move around
800 kilometres per hour, which is fast.
They’re also only a metre or so high,
in the open ocean, you’d barely notice.
When the wave gets closer to shore and the depth
decreases, all of the water below the surface runs
around slowing the wave down to a leisurely 50kph.
However, all the water that was moving below the surface now needs to go
somewhere else, and that place is up, reaching heights up to 30 metres.
A tsunami approaching land will also pull out all the water from the shore.
This is because tsunamis and waves are forces
that move water, but not the water itself.
Waves are just oscillating patterns with peaks and valleys.
A tsunami wave is the peak, and a valley must precede it.
So as a tsunami approaches, water on
the shore pulls back to “feed” the wave.
The same thing happens with tides and with
small wind waves you see breaking on the beach.
When the waves hit the shore there are three factors that determine
how destructive the wave can be; impact, erosion, and inundation.
In terms of impact, it’s helpful to get a sense of the scale.
A normal bathtub holds about 150 litres
of water, which weighs over 150 kilos.
A single cubic metre of water weighs over 1000 kilos,
more than an entire smart car, making a tsunami basically
a wall of smart cars flying toward you at 50 kph.
If a structure survives the impact, it’s
then subject to the eroding power of water.
Like rivers erode cuts into the landscape, tsunamis can collapse
bridges, eat away at building foundations, and seawalls.
Lastly, there’s inundation.
Basically, how far water reaches inland.
Deep water can float houses, lifting them off their foundations,
hoisting vehicles and other large objects along the way.
Once debris is floating, it can crash into
buildings, disrupt power, and even start fires.
Not only that, post tsunami drawback can
also drag people and debris out to sea.
If you aren’t crushed by a house, impaled by broken piping, or
electrocuted by broken power lines, you’ll drown out at sea.
The very same day that Tilly Smith was saving 100
people on that beach in Thailand, over 230,000 people
were fighting for their lives across the Indian Ocean.
After a strong magnitude 9.1 undersea earthquake shook the coast of Sumatra
at 7:58 AM, raising the ocean floor as much as 40 feet, waves radiated
out, striking Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and even as far as South Africa.
In just under 8 hours, hundreds of thousands of
people had lost their lives in over a dozen countries.
Becoming the deadliest tsunami in human history.
Only fifteen minutes after the initial quake, the Pacific
Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii registered the impact.
Thirty minutes after that, the first waves hit the coast
of Indonesia with no warning, smashing against the coast
of Banda Aceh, Indonesia’s largest city, killing around
170,000 people and destroying buildings, roads, and bridges.
After another hour and a half, while Tilly Smith was
telling her father and mother to get off the beach, tsunami
waves crashed against the shore, killing 5,400 people.
Another two hours after that, the waves hit Sri Lanka
all the way from the northeast to the southern tip, as
well as the east coast of India, taking 46,000 lives.
Eight hours after that, the waves hit the east coast of Africa,
causing the death of over 300 people in Somalia, Tanzania, and Kenya.
In Banda Aceh, one of the places hit worst by the waves,
people of all sorts fought to survive between the black waves.
Among them was Nazariah, a mother of Lampulo, who found
out about the tsunami from screaming outside of her home.
As people sprinted past her house, shouting that the water was coming,
her first instinct was to grab her 6 month old child and her mother.
There was a crash against the house, shifting the entire building.
Nazariah knew that even if she was on the
second floor, she and her baby wouldn’t be safe.
They needed to get to higher ground, now.
Nazariah took her mother’s hand with one hand, and her
infant up in the other, before making a break for it.
The first wave caught them however, sweeping them off their feet.
The water carried them past a police station where an
officer managed to haul the three of them out of the water.
Moments later, the second wave struck, forcing
everyone inside up to the second floor.
Bodies crammed into the rooms and offices of the station,
hoping to escape the deluge below, but the water followed them.
The dark, murky water began filling the room.
They could feel it rising, first soaking their shoes, then moving up to
their ankles, their knees, until they were waist deep in frigid water.
The situation was dire, if nothing was done, they were all going to drown.
As the water rose around them, a police officer
clambered upward, bashing at the ceiling.
Flakes of vinyl ceiling chipping away and landing in the turbid water.
Still the sea rose up to take them.
Suddenly, there shot a sudden flicker of light into the room.
The police officer clawed at the small hole he’d made
until it was wide enough for people to climb through.
One by one, he hoisted people up onto the roof, and there they
watched the water drag cars, houses, and people out to sea.
If Tilly hadn’t known how to spot the warning signs of a Tsunami,
that day might have gone very differently for her family.
In terms of warning signs we can look out for
whenever we’re out on the beach, there are a few.
The first, and most important warning sign is one that’s hard to miss.
Tsunamis are often triggered by earthquakes,
so a prolonged quake is a definite signal.
The shaking can be weak, or strong, but
the duration is the important factor.
That being said, tsunamis are also triggered by
underwater volcanic eruptions, so there are times in
which a tsunami will come without a telltale quake.
Now, if you also see the ocean begin to recede
further than usual, that’s another warning sign.
Tilly noticed just as much.
As tsunamis approach land they draw in water from the shore, so if you
notice that water seems to be going from land, but not coming back in,
tell everyone you can, and get to higher ground as soon as possible.
In addition to the rest, if you hear a noise roar from the
ocean, this is a sign that a much larger wave is coming.
Much like you can hear smaller waves break on a regular
day at the beach, larger waves also generate sound.
So if you hear something big coming, again, warn others
and get off the beach immediately to higher ground.
The last warning sign is more abstract than the rest, but as important.
Noticing any sudden changes in the nature of the water, like a quiet sea
suddenly becoming rough, is a good sign to move away from low ground.
Tilly had noticed unusual frothing along
the shoreline as the water receded.
The existence of seafoam created by waves at the beach is
a very common sight, however rapid change is a bad sign.
In any case, if you notice any of the preceding signs,
and you’re not sure what to do, tell the authorities.
Lifeguards, local security, the police can all
help you, but when in doubt, get to higher ground.
While the “Boxing Day Tsunami” was the deadliest wave
in history, that doesn’t make it the largest ever.
That title belongs to the Lituya Bay Tsunami.
In the evening of July 9th, 1958, an earthquake along the
Fairweather Fault in Alaska knocked over 30 million cubic
metres of rock into the Northeastern side of Lituya Bay.
The landslide of stone plummeted 900 metres down into Gilbert Inlet,
triggering a massive tsunami that sailed down the length of the entire bay.
The wave was so massive that it managed to completely submerge the
small spur of land between the inlet and the rest of the bay, and swept
over La Chaussee Spit at the opening to the bay, totally inundating it.
The wave was so massive, that at its highest, it peaked around 525 metres.
For context, the Empire State building in New York is only
443 metres tall, and the CN Tower in Toronto, at 553 metres
tall, would only just poke out from under the wave that scoured
the shorelines of Lituya Bay naked of trees and vegetation.
Down on the water, Howard Ulrich and his 7 year old son were
anchored in a cove along the South shore in their boat, the Edrie.
Howard was awakened from his sleep by a violent shaking, so
he went up to the deck of his boat to check what happened.
Only a couple minutes later, a tremendous crash could be heard up the bay.
According to Howard, it was like an explosion
right before the wave came soaring down the bay.
He wasn’t able to get the anchor loose, so he let out as much slack
as he could, about 40 fathoms worth, or a little under 80 metres.
Ulrich watched as the massive wave appeared like a 30 metre wall of water
spanning the entire width of the bay and crashed against Cenotaph Island.
From their perspective the wave appeared to be immensely
steep, however the water, aside from the rumblings of the
quake, remained still until the moment the wave took them.
Ulrich and his son felt themselves rising upward,
and the boat jerked violently as the anchor chain
yanked at the bottom of the bay before snapping.
Their boat was carried up and over the south shore, riding the tsunami
before the backwash dragged them back into the centre of the bay.
From there, they watched as the giant wave continued out toward the ocean,
engulfing La Chaussee Spit that separated the bay from the Pacific Ocean.
To some, the Lituya Bay tsunami wasn’t technically a “true”
tsunami because the waves weren’t triggered by earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions but instead caused by a landslide.
That said, a report from the United States
Geological Survey refers to it as such.
Regardless of whether or not a particular wave is a “true” tsunami,
the result is a tremendous barrage of water pummeling into the coast.
Luckily, the World’s governments have come together and created
systems that track, predict, and warn when tsunamis could occur,
giving more time to save lives before they’re put in danger.
Like Erasmus said, prevention is better than the cure, so
knowing how to recognize the warning signs of a possible tsunami,
and getting away from lowground, will always be better than
any decision you may make in the midst of the rushing waves.
Hopefully none of us will ever have to
use this knowledge, but hope it helps.
What really affects how dangerous a natural
phenomena can be, is how prepared we are to meet it.
The 1958 Lituya Bay may have been the biggest wave in history,
but there were only a handful of people nearby to even see
it, so it wasn’t as deadly as the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami
and we barely had to do anything at all to reconstruct.
Whereas Banda Aceh needed to do much, much more to rebuild
after, and would need to put far more precautions in
place for the next time the oceans rise up to meet them.
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