[SmithL]

John and Jackie Knill pose at their Thailand resort in Khao Lak on Dec. 12, 2004.

Second of six photos in a sequence showing the beach at Khao Lak, Thailand, on Dec. 26, 2004. The photos show the water first receding, then forming into the first wave that crashed ashore.

Fifth of six photos in a sequence showing the beach at Khao Lak, Thailand, on Dec. 26, 2004

Sixth of six photos in a sequence showing the beach at Khao Lak, Thailand, on Dec. 26, 2004.

[Huntress]

Wow.

[JennysCool]

I think I see Tourist Guy in photo #5.

[Dallas59]

The wave was deceptive in some places. Who would even think of a killer wave?

[js1138]

No offense to anybody who was killed, but if you start running when the water recedes, you have a good chance, maybe ten minutes to reach higher ground.

[David1]

bump for later

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

So as the wall of water death approaches ....they stand there and take pictures of it on the beach ????

[WestVirginiaRebel]

I don't know about them, but if I saw something like that coming towards me, I'd have started a-runnin'.

[Daaave]

I remember people talking, when I was a rug rat in Hawaii, about a tidal wave. It hit the Big Island. Just recently, my father mentioned that his ship went to the Big Island, to help out. I hadn't heard that before. He said he saw a VW in a tree. This was in May 1960, Hilo, Hawaii.

"Some 61 people were killed, and 282 were injured."

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

BM

[XR7]

Couple's final photos "an echo from the grave"

By Lornet Turnbull

Seattle Times staff reporter

Enlarged photos


For larger versions of the tsunami photographs, click here.

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It was like a puzzle; these images from a broken digital camera washed up on a deserted beach in Thailand.

Christian Pilet of North Bend could not have known the power of his discovery: the last photos taken by a couple who lost their lives in the Dec. 26 tsunami and the closure the photo diary would bring to a grieving family half a world away in British Columbia.

Taken in sequence, the photographs tell a gripping story: John and Jackie Knill arriving at a Khao Lak resort, happily enjoying Christmas dinner with a large group of friends and then basking in a brilliant tropical sunset.

COURTESY OF KNILL FAMILY

8:26 a.m. Tourists stroll unaware of an ominous dark line; the tsunami rolling toward them from the horizon.

The next day, the couple is seen hugging, smiling; radiant on the beach. Then the story turns ominous: people stroll the beach under a clear blue sky, apparently oblivious to the large wave that has formed a line across the horizon.

The wave gets closer, its power more evident as it kicks up sand and mud and finally crashes onto the beach.

"We were stunned; just out of the blue, an echo from the grave," Pilet said. "What we saw in these pictures were the last five minutes of these people's lives."

COURTESY OF KNILL FAMILY

8:28 a.m. The tsunami crashes onto the beach, dwarfing a person trying to run across the sand to safety.

Pilet knew nothing about the man and woman in these photos. But through the power of the Internet and dogged determination, he would find their family not in Germany or Sweden as he'd originally suspected, but virtually in his own back yard.

The Knills of North Vancouver, B.C., had been on a four-month vacation in Thailand when they were caught in the deadly tsunami.

The disaster killed more than 170,000 people, including about a dozen Canadians.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Even in the final photo, big as the wave looks, it would be easy to assume that it was just a large rogue wave with a trough behind it it. It isn't evident that the new sea level is going to be as high as the top of the wave, or that the water is going to keep on coming for minutes and minutes.