Tsunami on Koh Phi Phi
Thailand

 
 

For information on how to donate or help
please see Google's Tsunami relief information for a list of organzations.

 

26 December 2004

My family was vacationing in Thailand for three weeks.

We spent a few days on Phi Phi Island, off the coast of Phuket and Krabi
in Southern Thailand.

Below is a photo of Phi Phi taken the day after the Tsunami.
This photo appeared in Bangok Post on 28 December.


We were staying at the Phi Phi Island Cabana hotel on the third floor
(#1., center of picture). We were in our room when the tsunami hit.
There is a good view from the hotel room, shown in the Hotel Video below.

The previous evening, Christmas, we walked through the village (#2., lower right).
It was full of hundreds of people.
The Christmas video below shows the festive scene.

I managed to get almost two minutes of the tsunami coming into the island.

A couple hours after the tsunami hit, we heard that another wavewas coming.
I took my family up the hill and we spent the night sleeping on the hillside (#3).

We were fortunate that we were able to
evacuate the island the next day (December 27) and get to Phuket.

 

The Videos
Videos are in Real Media, Quicktime and Windows Media.
The Real and Quick Time videos are smaller; the Windows Media are larger and higher resolution,
but require the latest version of Windows Media Player.
See the links below the list to download media players.

This short clip was taken on 24 December. We rented a boat to go snorkeling around the island. As it turns out, we came the same direction as the main wave (it is sepia colored because I accidentally hit the effect button on my camera).
Real
Quick Time
Windows Media
Here is a view from our room the evening of December 25, showing the beautiful and serene hotel grounds.
Real
Quick Time
Windows Media
This is a fairly long clip showing the hundreds of peoples in the shopping area of the village on Christmas night. Most of this village (marked by the '2' on the picture above) was wiped out by the wave. There were lots of people here the morning the wave hit.
Real
Quick Time
Windows Media
Here is the footage of the wave hitting the hotel taken from our third floor room.
Real
Quick Time
Windows Media
Download Real Media Player
www.real.com
Download Quick Time
www.apple.com/quicktime
Download latest Windows Media Player (windows explorer 5.0 or later)
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.aspx

 

Screen Grabs from the Videos:

View of the hotel pool the evening before - December 25
As the first wave hit....
A few seconds later...
Note the second wave coming.
Seconds later, after a ten feet wall of water inundates everything.
The water fills up to the second floor. Note the lady hanging on to the kayak. I think she was okay because the water slowly receded.
   

For information on how to donate or help
please see Google's Tsunami relief information for a list of organzations.
 
If you have questions or comments, please email me here.
All photographs, videos and content,Copyright 2005 issuespotter.com

The content of this web site are not to be duplicated without owners' express written permission.