When a devastating tsunami struck several countries in 2004, it killed over 220,000 people and caused damage that would take years to fully repair.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand bore the brunt of the tsunami, which began due to the movement of volcanic plates beneath the surface of the sea.

20 miles beneath the ocean floor, the India plate and the Burma microplate subducted, which is where the plates collide and one slides under the other.

That led to an 800-mile rupture, which triggered a massive earthquake that reached a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale.

The movement of the plates also caused the ocean floor to rise by 40 metres, which in turn triggered the tsunami.

As giant waves of destruction headed for the coastlines of multiple countries, some people captured the early stages of the disaster through holiday footage.

Footage of the tsunami showed the waves moving away from the beach (YouTube/Pilot90)

Among the footage is a video showing the frightening power of a tsunami, as people watching it could see the waves were going backwards.

Taken by YouTuber Pilot90, it shows one of the later waves that followed the initial hit of the tsunami, andyou can see the waves moving in reverse.

The reason this happens, according to the National Oceanography Centre, is that a tsunami will draw water back from the beach to ‘feed’ the gargantuan wave.

What you’re seeing is the tide going out with alarming speed and power to feed the next tsunami wave.

Viewers have been stunned and scared by seeing the waves moving in reverse, admitting it was a ‘weird and scary’ sight to see the ocean not behaving how it ought to.

While some were saying how the waves going backwards ‘freaked them out’ thanks to the ‘power and energy underneath the surface of the water’, others pointed out that this was a major warning sign of a tsunami.

They explained that when it looks like the waves are moving in reverse and the water is drained off the beach, it means a tsunami is on the way, as all that water will return with terrifying force.

If you ever see such a thing, then ‘you should be running now’, according to their advice, and try to look for ‘higher ground’.

A survivor of the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 recalled being swept away from his family, becoming separated from his brother and never seeing his parents again after that.

After the devastation, people from around the world donated billions to help pay for the long repair works.

The husband of a woman who went missing for over three decades made an emotional statement after she was miraculously found.

Patricia Kopta went missing from her neighbourhood of North Hills, Pittsburgh, US on 20 June 1992, and was reported missing by her husband Bob on 27 November 1992.

Bob waited a few months before reporting her disappearance as she was known to wander off for periods of time due to her deteriorating mental health.

Patricia was found in Puerto Rico, 31 years after disappearing. (WPXI)

Patricia, a devout Roman Catholic, was known as a ‘free spirit’, and claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary, while preaching messages related to her religion and telling strangers that we were all going to die in a worldwide nuclear holocaust.

But after police couldn’t find her, she was classified as a ‘critical missing person’, with an urgent search being launched.

At the time, the ‘eccentric’ Patricia was 52 and was said to ‘love the ocean, the beach and the warm sunshine’, enjoying trips to Puerto Rico before marrying Bob, according to information given by her sister Gloria.

She firmly believed that her sister may have fled to start a new life that matched that description, but no-one had any way of knowing as Patricia had gone radio silent, which worried her husband who though she could be ‘laying in a ditch somewhere’.

Bob even paid a psychic to try and find answers and put adverts in Puerto Rican newspapers to try and find his wife, whom he had been married to since 1972, 12 years before a doctor diagnosed her with ‘delusions of grandeur’, with suspicions of schizophrenia.

Bob released an emotional statement after news broke, stood in front of a press conference with Patricia’s sister, Gloria. (WPXI)

Seven years after she vanished, Patricia’s family were given a legal declaration that considered her dead.

Bob later said: “I come home one night, and she’s just gone,”I went through a lot. Every time they’d find a body somewhere [I wondered], ‘Is it Patricia? Is it Patricia?'”

However, in 2023, 31 years after she vanished, Patricia was located in a nursing home in Puerto Rico, after a social worker found out more about the woman and contacted authorities.

When news broke, Bob, who never remarried, spoke at a press-conference, stating: “It’s a sad thing, but it’s a relief off my mind. When your wife goes missing, you’re a suspect.”

The 86-year-old was then asked how he felt about being a suspect for the case, to which he responded: “After 30 years, you try to forget about it.

“Now, I can forget about it. We know what happened, and she is taken care of now. She could have come home any time. But that’s what she wanted. She always said she wanted to go to a warm climate.”

Patricia was wandering aimlessly around the home in 1999, before being taken in, and though she stayed tight-lipped about her past, she began to open up more as she suffered from dementia.

Patricia was last seen by her loved ones in 1992. (WPXI)

A DNA test confirmed that the woman was indeed Patricia, with her sister Gloria also relieved when she found the news out as she flew straight to Puerto Rico to see her long-lost sister.

Gloria told WMTW: “We’re very thankful to know that Patty is alive and well.”

“She’s being well taken care of. We really thought she was dead all those years. It was a very big shock to know that she’s still alive.”

Police suggested that she may have left her husband and country behind after she realised she might be institutionalised due to her mental state.

Coming back from the dead is quite the mean feat, considering it was nearly all over for a second there – but according to this woman, the whole experience is quite ‘humbling’.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always sort of imagined that those who decide not to walk towards the bright light that’s calling their name suddenly bolting upright on the operating table to brag about how they beat the Grim Reaper.

But this is obviously not the case – and those who have bounced back from a brush with death reckon you regain consciousness feeling anything but cocky about dodging your demise by the skin of your teeth.

A Reddit user has revealed what she experienced when she nearly died and ended up on life support.

The woman, who has a nut allergy, explained that she became extremely unwell while she was enjoying her birthday lunch at a local restaurant as a result of her food being ‘cross-contaminated with cashew’.

She wrote: “A darn tree nut took me out. The reaction came on in just a few seconds while at the restaurant. My throat closed, and my tongue starting swelling. Unfortunately, no one had Benadryl or an EpiPen.”

The healthcare worker recalled how she could ‘feel the pain’ while dually noticing that her ‘physical appearance was changing’ as the severe allergic reaction took hold of her body.

She was subsequently rushed to hospital, where she ‘died, was revived and was on life support for quite some time’.

The Redditor said she was ‘pronounced dead for a couple of minutes’ before she suddenly came back to life – and she describes the whole thing as quite an embarrassing and bizarre situation, to put it bluntly.

The woman described her brush with death as ‘humbling’. (Getty Stock Image)

Her post continued: “The experience was humbling. I felt absolutely no pain.

“I was comfortable even though my body was fighting hard against everything physically,” she explained. “I remember vomiting a few times while on the ventilator and aspirating… but, it didn’t hurt.

“I was surrounded by my family in the ICU, which was comforting. It was a bit like an out-of-body experience.

“I can still recall conversations my family had in the ICU room but no matter how much I wanted to reply to them or even interact with them, I couldn’t. That was the weird part for me.

“Upon extubation (removing ventilator from lungs), I remember seeing my grandmother who passed away in 2004.

“She told me to ‘turn around… my time here is just beginning.’ Then… I felt the tubes slide out of my lungs and the nurses yelling my name.”

The healthcare worker said the incident ‘wholly changed’ her perspective. (Getty Stock Image)

Incredibly, the healthcare worker went on to make a miraculous recovery after being placed on a mechanical ventilator for several days in the intensive care unit.

She added: “The experience was surreal. I mostly ‘slept‘ while on the ventilator. But – I could hear my family’s voices in the room with me. I knew where they were at. And, as much as I tried to… I couldn’t move my real body or talk to them.

“I did have a bit of an out-of-body experience. People to this day have no idea how I can recall where they were sitting in the room and the exact conversations they had.”

The social media user said she learned quite a few lessons thanks to her near-death experience – including ‘learning to live in the moment’, ‘never going to sleep with any regrets’ and ‘slowing down to enjoy the beauty in life’.

All in all, she wrapped it all up really nice when she said: “[My] perspective has wholly changed.”

However, the woman said she now suffers from a mild form of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) as a result of her near-miss with the cashew nut.

According to the NHS, this is a condition which causes people’s heart rates to shoot up rapidly when they stand up after sitting or lying down causing symptoms such as dizziness, fainting, palpitations, shortness of breath and chest pain.

Imagine receiving the ashes of your deceased family member, spending time grieving them and realising they’re gone… only for them to suddenly appear alive.

Sounds like waking up from a bad dream, right?

Well, it was real life for this lad who found out he was well, supposed to be dead.

On 11 September 2023, Tyler Chase was declared dead from a drug overdose.

The 23-year-old had been living in a recovery program for many months after struggling with substance abuse.

The American hadn’t had contact with his family for years and had been on the streets.

And then, the next thing his family knows, a death certificate and urn of his ashes were sent to them. Only they weren’t actually his.

Chase was actually out living his life when he realised his food assistance benefits were no longer active. And in October, he was shocked to learn it was because he was allegedly ‘dead’.

KPTV Fox 12 Oregon

Unsurprisingly, the employees at the Department of Human Services were baffled to see this Oregon man ‘back from the dead’.

“They were like, ‘Can we see your ID?’ So, I gave it to them,” Chase told Portland Fox affiliate KPTV. “Then they just looked as confused as I was, and they’re like, ‘Right here it says you are dead.’”

Turns out, a man was found dead back in September with Chase’s wallet and temporary driver’s license on him – which has his name on, but no photo.

So, the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the man as Chase.

The office then notified his family of his assumed death and on the 1 October, the body was cremated.

Officials reckon the bloke they though was Chase, stole the real Chase’s wallet at an addiction recovery centre where they were both staying.

KPTV Fox 12 Oregon

Chase said: “So, they find a paper ID of me that’s smudged and everything and they were like ‘that’s Tyler John Chase,’ so they put him down as me.

“And then they notified the family like protocol.”

Obviously it was a bit of a shocker for the family as one of his cousins told KGW he ‘lost it’.

Latasha Rosales said: “It is so hard to believe how something like this could even happen. It just makes no sense to me.”

A county spokesperson said in a statement: “We deeply regret that the misidentification happened.”

And now, there’s been a change in the protocols at the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“Going forward, all individuals who are found with a temporary state-issued identification must also have fingerprints submitted for positive identification, to ensure that this will never happen again.”