A woman who survived a tsunami shared the devastation of the impact of the waves.
It has been 20 years since the Boxing Day tsunami which killed of more than 227,000 people on 26 December 2004.
There were little survivors out of those who were swept away by the waves, and for Sharon Howard, it took ‘everything’ from her.
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She was there that day when the waves took the lives of her two sons and her fiancé.
At the time, the family had been holidaying in Thailand at the beach resort of Khao Lak.
Sadly, they were in the path of 100-foot waves which were triggered after an earthquake in the Indian Ocean shifted tectonic plates, resulting in a disaster that affected several countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka
Thailand was where David Page, 44, Mason, eight, and six-year-old Taylor were bombarded by the waves whilst staying at the resort.
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Sharon, 57, has visited the new hotel which is in place of the original destroyed hotel for the last 15 years to lay flowers for her loved ones.
The mum-of-three has been open about what that day was like for her, particularly the moment the water came crashing into the hotel.
While many victims lost their lives on the beaches, Sharon was in her ground-floor hotel room with David as Mason was on a sun lounger outside of the room and Taylor was at the resort’s kids’ club.
She explained that the family had all had breakfast together, before David and Mason dropped Taylor to the club and Mason went to relax on his own.
Sharon said she was first alerted to something going wrong when she heard a ‘loud and powerful noise’ and opened the door to see water coming into their room.
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That’s when David told her to close it as ‘the water will go down’.
She said: “The next thing, water just crashed through the patio door and we were pushed into the corner by the weight of it. All I could think of was my sons.”
She said it ‘crashed through the patio door and we were pushed into the corner by the weight of it’ where she hit her head and passed out.
Sharon explained: “I came round and David was in front of me, not moving. His head was in the water. I shook him and shook him to get a response and there wasn’t one.
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“I knew I had to go and look for the boys.”
But where were her sons?
“I knew I had to go and look for the boys,” she said.
Unfortunately, the boys had died from the impact of the waves, but Sharon didn’t know that at the time and tried to find them.
Sharon on the other hand, was saved after an Australian man called Ian Walsh held a beach towel from an upper level and pulled her up to safety.
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Recalling the moment, she realised that her youngest was gone, she said: “People shouted that the water was coming again.
“He grabbed some towels and helped me up to the next level.
“That saved me from being washed away. I just thought ‘I’ve got to get to the children’s club’.
“I managed to get down there but there was a man in there who said, ‘There’s no one in there’. He was also looking for his little boy.”
After the disaster, it took three months for Taylor’s body to be returned to the UK, while David and Mason's bodies were not found until months later.
She said of that day: “I was looking forward to the future, but it was all sadly taken away from me.”
Britt Jones