TSUNAMI 2004, THEY FILMED THE DISASTER OF THE CENTURY | Emission spéciale | TMC

It is one of the memories that some would prefer not to have. It killed more than 230,000 people, including 95 French, destroyed the coastal areas of 13 countries and left thousands of people destitute. Fifteen years have passed and yet nobody can forget the tsunami of 2004 that hit the coasts around the Indian Ocean. It’s December 26 2004. Hundreds of tourists are relaxing around the swimming pools of Thailand’s luxury hotels. Some are having breakfast, others are getting ready to go out. They cannot possibly imagine that within a few minutes nothing will remain of these Eden-like locations. In the ocean’s depths a cataclysm is looming. 1,000 kilometers away, in Indonesia, an earthquake of unprecedented magnitude has just triggered a devastating tsunami. The shock is so great, 9.3 on the Richter scale, that the earth rises up and releases a wave of unheard-of violence, in places reaching a height of more than 30 meters. This is the beginning of 6 hours of chaos. Hour by hour, minute by minute, from Indonesia to Thailand, by way of Sri Lanka, we trace the path of the tsunami. To understand this extraordinary phenomenon, 3D images will decode the monster’s progress. People who experienced the wave close up tell us their stories. We delve into the private world of their vacations and with them we plunge into the cataclysm thanks to their amateur film footage shot 15 years ago. The angry rumble in the ocean depths is a reminder of the power of Nature. It disrupted the lives of hundreds of French people there enjoying a family vacation or spending their honeymoon. Fifteen years later what has become of the survivors of the tsunami? Charlotte, Philippe, Jean-Louis, Robin, Anne, David, Fabien, Guillaume, Yannick and Geraldine relate not only their scares, their sufferings, but the incredible survival instinct that allowed them to come through alive. In the heart of the tsunami, a journey into the private lives of the survivors.