Tsunami spared Koh Phayam

This is my very own footage of the Boxing Day Tsunami - not very dramatic, but interesting. December 26, 2004, around 11:30am. We just arrived on the island and were disapointed, because the nice little Restaurant of Bamboo Bungalows was displaced by a bigger one - and the beach was gone. The waves behaved weired and nobody knew what was going on. A little later, while we went to our hut, bigger waves came, but nobody was hurt seriously in Koh Phayam as far as I know.

I still don't know why Koh Phayam was spared by the Tsunami, because elsewhere Ranong province was hit hard. Maybe it was the shape of the seabed. Maybe it was the uninhabited Koh Kam islands 20 kilometers south, which were also hit hard and possibly broke the wave. Maybe it was sheer luck.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• tsunami
• thailand
• ranong
• ko
• payam
• koh
• phayam
• wave
• waves
• beach
• unseen
• footage

[chrook]

I had a friend at Bamboo that day.

[orsonwelles2]

who was it?

[homerbear46]

..woah...looking at it again that was too close!!...it's like the sea gets up right to the tree-line....and is growling at you cos it can't get higher, and gobble you all up......you can sea the power in it..as it kind of stops, waiting before it gets pulled back..

.. Buddha had an eye on Ko-Phayam that day..!!

PS..is this taken from outside the Rasta-bar/bungalows??

[orsonwelles2]

No, it's taken from outside Bamboo Bungalows.

[dannyboi435]

lucky, LUCKY people.

[homerbear46]

this is a great beach for biking on..I've got two short vids of it.

The massive wide/flat shape of the bay, and the quickly-rising, sandy-part of the beach probably saved the island, as the bungalows behind the tree-line are about 2m above sea-level..

If the Tsunami there had been (say) another meter higher, that island would have been inundated..2 meters higher.. it would have been disaster. Aside from a few rock-headlands around the beach-ends, the interior of the island has no hills at all.

[JockDK]

Wiered to se the place where I played volley, a year ago, in this situation..

[newfolu]

you can see that the water was sucked back