Eleven years ago today, a massive earthquake hit beneath the Indian ocean, triggering a tsunami that claimed over two million lives. It was one of the most destructive natural disasters ever, that devastated parts of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India. While no one - not even the meteorological department - could foresee the deadly waves, a 10-year-old girl spotted the unusual signals of tsunami and saved a 100 people, including her family, from dying. Source: YouTube
In the December of 2004, 10-year-old Tilly was vacationing with her parents and sister on Maikhao beach in Phuket, Thailand, when she saw the tides rushing out. The behaviour of sea waves reminded her of a video about a tsunami in Hawaii, that her teacher had shown during Geography class back in the UK.
In an interview with The Sun, she said:
"The sea was fizzing and there was froth on of the waves. I kept thinking, ‘I’ve seen this, I’ve seen this somewhere’. I felt something terrible was going to happen."
When she first told her parents, they brushed her apprehensions aside, saying that it was just bad weather. But when she noticed a log spinning in circles in the sea, she was sure that it was an incoming tsunami, and that everyone was in a grave danger.
That is when she started shouting: