A woman who survived a tsunami shared the devastation of the impact of the waves. It has been 20 years since the Boxing Day tsunami which killed of more than 227,000 people on 26 December 2004. There were little survivors out of those who were swept away by the waves, and for Sharon Howard, it took ‘everything’ from her.

Sharon Howard has returned to Thailand to mark the 20th anniversary of losing her six-year-old son Taylor, his eight-year-old brother Mason and fiancé, David Page, 44

20 years later, one of the Matara train’s carriages sits outside the city’s Tsunami Museum as a haunting reminder of Boxing Day of 2004. The effects of the 9.3 Richter scale earthquake did not relent until eight hours later, when unaware swimmers off the coast of South Africa felt the force of the waves.

Ani Naqvi remembers the Boxing Day tsunami 20 years ago not just as the day when she nearly lost her life but one that gave her new purpose. She had just turned 33 and was visiting a friend in the Sri Lankan surfing village of Arugam Bay on 26 December 2004 when one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of Indonesia,

A woman who was able to survive the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand 20 years ago unharmed, aged eight, because of an elephant said "it makes you grateful for everything that's happened to you". On 26004,

She has written a book about her experience of being on the east coast of Sri Lanka when it hit.