From paradise to devastation: Australian journalist Kimina Lyall tells the extraordinary story of surviving the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand.
Kimina Lyall was the Australian's Bangkok correspondent. At the beginning of her posting she underwent a devastating experience. Yet despite everything, she was determined not to let it force her back to Australia. Instead, she and her partner discovered the perfect island retreat. On a paradisical beach, among a small international community, they built their dream holiday escape. Moving between bustling Bangkok and the peace of the beach, Kimina was able to recreate her sense of peace. That is until everything was swept into the sea on 26 December 2004. The Boxing Day tsunami devasted their small golden community as it did so many other places. Drawing on all her journalistic skills, Kimina retells her own story and pieces together those of her neighbours as, minute by minute, they struggled to survive. Having created vivid, all-too-human impressions of these people, she recounts with an extraordinary power and sense of building horror the destruction of a way of life and the chilling loss of life - and then takes us through the aftermath. This is an extraordinary story, stunningly told.
