10 year old Tilly Smith is credited with having saved the lives of over 100 beach goers
Smith learned about tsunamis in a geography lesson two weeks before the tsunami from her teacher. While she and her family were walking on Mai Khao Beach in Thailand, she recognised the signs of a tsunami she had been taught, and alerted her parents. “The water was really, really frothy,” Smith said. “It wasn’t calm and it wasn’t going in and then out. It was just coming in and in and in.”
Initially, not seeing any obvious sign of a large wave on the horizon, her parents didn’t believe her assertion that a tsunami was coming, but Smith persisted, stating curtly: “I’m going. I’m definitely going. There is definitely going to be a tsunami”. Her father, Colin, sensing the urgency in his daughter’s voice, heeded Tilly’s warning. He managed to convince a security guard that a tsunami was inbound
Tilly Smith recounted that, by coincidence, an English-speaking Japanese man was nearby and heard her mention the Japanese word “tsunami”, bolstering her claim by saying: “Yeah, there’s been an earthquake in Sumatra; I think your daughter’s right.The beach was evacuated to the second story of a nearby hotel before the 9-metre tsunami reached the shore, with patrons narrowly avoiding the tsunami by seconds.
Ultimately, Mai Khao Beach was one of the few beaches on the island with no reported fatalities, with only a few minor injuries recorded. Colin added, “It was later when we sort of went through what happened we thought how lucky we were, ‘cause if she hadn’t told us, we would have just kept on walking,” he said. “I’m convinced we would have died”