The tsunami that followed the Indian Ocean earthquake on Boxing Day 2004 remains one of the worst natural disasters on record.
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Travelling at 800km/h the wave killed almost 250,000 people across 14 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
Today tsunami survivor Aliza Bolsius remembers.
EMMA SWAIN reports.
As morning broke on December 26, 2004, Aliza Bolsius gratefully started her day on a secluded beach in Thailand.
Away from her family, Aliza was completing part of a hospitality internship on the island of Phuket and had secured two rare days off from work.
"To celebrate, my friend and I took off to a small island and stayed in a little hut," Aliza, now 30, said.
"On Christmas night we had a few drinks and the next morning we got up early because it was so hot."
It was then the Bolwarra native heard the bang.
"We originally thought it (the earthquake) was the sound of construction work so we packed our gear and walked to this tiny secluded beach and set ourselves up for the day," Aliza said.
"It was really misty and balmy and we just thought we were pretty fancy being in this beautiful part of the world."
While her friend listened to music, Aliza read a book gifted to her by her mother.
"I looked up and saw that all the water had gone out away from the sand and it just didn't seem right but I didn't think anything of it," she said.
"But then I noticed the waves had started to curl up around the rock face and it was then I knew something was wrong."
Aliza alerted her friend, stood up and turned around.
"That's about as far as we got because the wave broke and collected us," Aliza said.
"My friend flew past me and I was thrown into a palm tree and that's where I stayed.
"We were just terrified, no one else was around and we had no idea what was going on."
Terrified and injured, the women made their way to higher ground and into a nearby village.
"Everyone was manic because they knew what had happened and they were fearful another wave would come," Aliza said.
"We were messy and we were hurt but we managed to stay overnight on a concrete slab in someone's house."
At least 226,000 people - including 28 Australians - were killed as a result of the tsunami that followed the Indian Ocean earthquake.
"It was horrific when we found out just how bad the tsunami was and it was truly devastating to know how many people had died," Aliza said.
"When we got back to the place we were staying at all the little businesses on the beach were gone and we never saw the people we had worked with again. God knows where they ended up.
"It was absolutely devastating and I think we were maybe more shocked than we realised and while we wanted to stay and help we just needed to see our families.
"It was quite a number of hours afterwards before we contact our families and they were terrified."
A decade on and Aliza has overcome her fear of the water and has returned to Thailand twice.
But the memory of that day will never be diminished.
"It doesn't really feel like 10 years to me but the memory is still really vivid and I can remember everything about it," Aliza said.
"Psychologically, I don't think I was that badly affected but I was physically hurt and my body was pretty wrecked from the trauma hitting the tree.
"But it was pretty scary and I do think about it every year."