Mr Hunter’s speech was a very unique one, giving us insight into this tsunami encounter experience. The tsunami occured in Bang Tao, Thailand, when he was on holiday with his family and children, on the 26th December 2004 9:30 am. He first described how he was enjoying his morning by the beach swimming with his children. Mr Hunter had been surprised as that day, not many people were at the beach- mostly locals. When he was swimming with his children, he soon started to realise something unusual about the ocean- forming small riptides and whirlpools, gradually starting to pull back from the shore. Mr Hunter then felt himself very very far from shore, very deep with a strong current. With the help of the locals, he and his family evacuated from the sea as they started to see a humongous wave start to tower over them. He stated “the wave got higher and higher. Then the water was over our heads” At this point in time Mr Hunter said how the whole beach was in a lot of tension and panic. Luckily, he and his family managed to get up in the higher grounds of the hotel before the wave hit them. His family and other hotel guests were lucky to be evacuated, as there was no warning and in this typical area, death toll was high.

After the wave washed over them, effects were disastrous. Massive objects were taken and broken. Luckily in the hotel, only one guest had died however in the whole Phuket region, a quarter of a million had died. This tsunami also affected the whole of southeast Asia. In the hotel, Mr Hunter showed a picture of the whole entrance completely flooded, one of the hotel buggies completely sunk. He mostly said how the tsunami had affected the infrastructure and environment more than him personally. However he did say that after having experienced such trauma, this kind of stress and panic inevitably differentiated to day to day stresses. Furthermore his family and him were also featured in a Scottish news article, proving how globally known this issue was. However Mr Hunter said that this event had not impacted him in the long term, and doesn’t impact his everyday life. We could also identify this through the tone he used to tell the story, as we could see he seemed laid back and relaxed whilst telling this story, not resenting any kind of sad emotion. This event must have meant something to this but now, is only seen as a fascinating experience, or memory he will not forget.