The front page of this newspaper has a rather chilling sequence taken on the beach at Railay. It's in Norweigen - sorry.
You can clearly see that prior to the waves hitting, the water went all the way out - like a tide only much further. Aparrently in the Pacific, where these things happen a lot more often, locals know that if the water rushes out all of a sudden, you should pissbolt up away fromt the beach. Obviously the tourists in these photos didn't know that.
tim |