A terrifying simulation showing the realities of the 2004 tsunami reveals just how fast it would have crashed through towns.
On Boxing Day that year, those who were vacationing or living on the coast of South and Southeast Asia experienced one of the deadliest earthquakes and tsunamis of the century.
With over 220,000 people losing their lives, and 139,000 homes being swept away, it was something that devastated lives forever.
Advert
But as the footage of the tsunami is rare, this simulation provides a great insight into how inescapable it really was.
Whilst there has been a man who accidentally caught the beginning of the wave, there isn’t footage to show the actual impact.
Of course, anyone who was close enough to film that was probably swept along with it, so this video created by Zack D Films, a YouTuber who makes the scariest real-life simulations you’ve ever seen.
He once made one about what to do if you fall from a great height, and another about the Khamar Daban deaths.
Advert
For this video, he explained to viewers how the tsunami began, sharing: “The water started to recede, rapidly, exposing the ocean floor.”
He added that those who were there were ‘confused by this’ until they started to ‘notice the wave coming closer to the shore’.
This wave wasn’t something you’d stay close to if you had the option to get away from it.
It was a 100 foot wave which was caused by two tectonic plates surging upwards of about 40 meters, causing the 800-mile rupture.
The earthquake began because of the Indian and Burma plates subducted 20 miles below the ocean floor, releasing the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs.
Advert
On the richter scale, used to measure the magnitude of an earthquake, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake hit a magnitude of 9.1, triggering a tsunami that would do most of the damage, destroying several coastal areas.
Near the city of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, waves reached heights of 51m, killing almost170,000 people alone.
Sri Lanka, which is 1,100 miles from Sumatra, felt the wrath of it two hours later and it claimed the lives of 35,322 people.
The tsunami then hit the coasts of Thailand, killing 8,000 people.
Somalia, Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar and Tanzani also felt the wave, as it affected 14 countries.
Advert
In total, there were almost 230,000 fatalities across the 14 countries, with donations totalling $6.25 billion (£4.7 billion) as the world tried to assist in the rescue of people affected by the event.
Louis Mullan, a British survivor of the tsunami shared that he first realised something was going on when he looked out towards the ocean.
"I remember seeing lots of sand and a bubbling, white line in the sea in the distance, but I had no idea what was coming," he explained.
He was thankfully able to get to safety with his brother, Theo, but their parents tragically died.
Advert
Another survivor called Louise was 6 at the time of the impact, and she shared how it affected her childhood.
"It was carnage, there was people screaming and everyone’s just running," she said. "We were just like ‘there’s a height, let’s get up there.
"I remember being scared of the sea for like, four years, which sounds really stupid," she recalled.
"The sea would like go back a tiny bit, just because it does, and I would be like 'oh my god, it's going to happen again.'"
Topics: YouTube, World News
Britt Jones