When the waves finally subsided, there was nothing but silence. “I couldn’t hear another person, which made me think that maybe I was one of the only survivors,” North said. After a while, she heard some faint voices in the distance and “screamed ...

The couple were on holiday with family on Vilamendhoo island in the Maldives, where they noticed the usually still water began lapping. The couple said around three feet of water slowly approached the island,

Twenty years after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that claimed over 230,000 lives across the Indian Ocean region, thousands gathered in the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday to commemorate the tragedy.

A 9.1 magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean on December 26 2004 triggered the tsunami which killed more than 200,000 people. The Prime Minister was among those paying tribute, saying his thoughts are with the “millions of people who were affected”.