Tsunami Seen From a High-Rise

image Snopes posted a photo (click to enlarge) that's going around accompanied by this text:

Be sure and open the picture for a shock of your life to see what the tsunami looked like just before hitting Puket, Thailand. This picture is not a fake. It appears to have been taken from a hi-rise building window in downtown Phuket Thailand. The power of nature is hard to comprehend, especially the destructiveness of water.

Snopes says the status of the picture is undetermined, but I'd have a hard time believing it's real. First of all, is that actually downtown Phuket? I've never been there, so I couldn't say, but all the pictures of Thailand I've seen show it being a lot greener... a lot more vegetation. Second, almost every account of the tsunami I've read said that it didn't look like the classic hollywood image of a tidal wave towering above the land... which is exactly what this picture looks like. The wave in this picture is nearly as high as the tallest buildings, which would make it at least 100 feet high (or even higher). Of course, if this picture is real, it's pretty incredible.
Update: The cars are driving on the wrong side of the road for this to be a picture taken in Thailand.
image Update 2 (1/19/05): This picture actually shows a harbor view of Antofagosta, Chile (as seen in the thumbnail to the right). The large wave has obviously been photoshopped in.

Photos

Posted on Tue Jan 04, 2005


Comments

That's not even close to being real.
Posted by brian  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  11:23 AM
Shouldn't the water be brown, anyways?
Posted by aw  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  11:48 AM
It does look pretty fakey.
Posted by davetolomy  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  11:50 AM
Looks fake.
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  12:24 PM
Madonna's plastic surgeon does better work than that.
Posted by Craig  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  12:52 PM
Actually the wave looks like one of the waves from "The Perfect Storm". Or maybe it was: "The Day After TOmmorow"
Posted by davetolomy  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  12:52 PM
I don't see anything that looks like that area in the photo gallery at the Phuket Gazette: http://www.phuket-photos.com/phuket-tidal-wave.htm?ref=2005150557
Maybe someone with more time than I can look through them all and find out.
And I should have said Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon does better work....drat
Posted by Craig  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  12:57 PM
It looks a little like downtown Honolulu:
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  01:15 PM
...Phuket area:

sorry for the long url...
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  01:33 PM
Uhoh, Alex...I think I skewed the page...
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  01:34 PM
...and it doesn't even link to where I needed it to go.
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  01:35 PM
...this should be correct:

http://www.allamanda.phuket.com/japan/location.htm
Posted by Maegan  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  01:36 PM
I fixed it.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  01:49 PM
cant be thailand as cars are driving on the left
and they like us brits drive on the right
Posted by collin  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  02:33 PM
Isn't it the other way around? We americans drive on the right. You brits drive on the left? Anyway, that's a good catch. Pretty much proves that it's not a photo of a Thailand Tsunami.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  02:55 PM
found this to be sure...definately not thailand:
http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/driving on the left.htm#leftdriving
Posted by David  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  04:42 PM
Japan drives on the left, like Britain and Ireland. I don't know about Thailand.
Of course, the image could have somehow gotten flopped (reversed horizontally).
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  04:43 PM
Well, I checked with my colleague who used to live in Thailand and is married to a Thai woman, and he confirmed that drivers in Thailand go on the left side of the road (like in Britain or Japan; the opposite of the U.S. and most other countries). So the photo either is not from Thailand or it's been tweaked somehow.
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  05:44 PM
The wording on the caption is suspicious. It's almost as if they refer to Phuket as a city and not an island mentioning "downtown Phuket" If the caption ain't right I wouldn't trust the source of the picture is either.
Posted by sbnature  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  07:11 PM
Obvious fake - why belabor it? But if so, why did I post this comment? Maybe some Zen is needed.
Posted by stork  on  Tue Jan 04, 2005  at  10:05 PM
That wave looks like photoshop. The water would be brown anyways...that's badly done.
Posted by Liz  on  Wed Jan 05, 2005  at  02:03 AM
I heard there wasn't any big wave. Water just rose very fast.
Posted by Loxx  on  Wed Jan 05, 2005  at  10:03 AM
I'm also bummed that Phuket isn't pronounced the way I thought it was. I always wanted for my first born to be born there, so in class, when the teacher asks where everyone was born, my kid could proudly say...
Posted by Craig  on  Wed Jan 05, 2005  at  10:09 AM
ifilm.com has good footage of waves breaking onto the beach and into some Phuket hotels. The waves shown are nice size, but only Sunset Beach big.
Posted by sbnature  on  Wed Jan 05, 2005  at  06:09 PM
To summarize:

1. It's fake.
2. It's badly done.
3. I'm pretty sure they took that wave from Big Wednesday...
Posted by Andr̩  on  Thu Jan 06, 2005  at  02:34 AM
That looks nothing like Phuket. Nice try though. 😉
Posted by Jesi Brewster  on  Thu Jan 06, 2005  at  12:28 PM
Snopes has determined this photo to be false, and gives good reasons to back it up.

http://snopes.com/photos/natural/tsunami2.asp
Posted by Tornado  on  Fri Jan 07, 2005  at  01:00 AM
Well, those are all the same reasons already stated by people here.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Fri Jan 07, 2005  at  01:12 AM
I use stories from here and snopes on my messege board. Looks like another story I can put up.
Posted by Dany  on  Fri Jan 07, 2005  at  02:12 PM
I actually just received this email from my sister, who works for a school district. The email had been forwarded to two groups of people previous to my receiving this, but get this--the original guy that sent out the email had claimed that his sister took the picture herself while she was relaxing at a B&B a week before the tsunami hit. O_o So I copied everyone who had received the email all the way back to the original sender, and I sent them all the link to this page and Snopes.

I bet that guy feels like an idiot now 😊
Posted by Sarah  on  Fri Jan 07, 2005  at  03:41 PM
Also, Alex, that's not Honolulu, that's Waikiki on Oahu. The mountains in the background is Diamond Head; I've been there before! And that's not Diamond Head in the background of the fake tsunami picture, so I think we can rule out Waikiki as the source, but not Hawaii in general.
Posted by Sarah  on  Fri Jan 07, 2005  at  03:53 PM
Easy to tell it's not a real tidal. The beach is normal.

Basically, just before a tidal wave hits, the water will literally pull out a good distance, depending on the strength of the wave, so if you're ever at the beach, and notice there's suddenly a *lot* more beach, be ready to get wet..

In other words, normal shoreline=not tidal.
Posted by Bobcat  on  Sat Jan 08, 2005  at  04:50 PM
Oh, and the text going with the photo should also be a dead giveaway. Any time anyone says 'this is not a fake', the response should be 'Well, I wasn't thinking it was beforehand, but now that you mention it...'. That and the hokey line about 'destructiveness of water'.
Posted by Bobcat Again  on  Sat Jan 08, 2005  at  04:53 PM
When a co-worker showed me this in his e-mail, my reaction was that it was probably a hoax. His reaction to my comment was something to the effect of "So and so wouldn't send me something that wasn't for real. Forget about it. I don't know why I bothered to show you this...". I hate it when people are so easily deceived and don't want to seek the truth.
Posted by Mark  on  Sun Jan 09, 2005  at  08:46 PM
When we first saw tha photo we both thought that it was fake, we have been sent it several times now, and it doesn't look any better with each viewing.
Posted by Marcia & Roger Adams  on  Mon Jan 10, 2005  at  07:44 AM
Phuket, Thailand?

Well, not going to comment on the really bad photoshop job (oops, just did), but that is definatly not Phuket or anywhere around the coast. I know, I lived there.
Posted by Zeddash  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  09:09 PM
none of the cars are even swerving to avoid the water. i don't think it's too much to assume at least one of them would see the water and attempt to avoid it.
Posted by G  on  Wed Jan 12, 2005  at  02:53 PM
And, if the guy's sister (who supposedly took the picture), took it a WEEK before the tsunami hit...hmmm...well, you get the point...fake fake fake
Posted by Theo  on  Fri Jan 14, 2005  at  07:56 AM
This is a picture of Antofagasta Chile! It is the most obvious fake photo of that tsunami ever.
Posted by Patty  on  Mon Jan 17, 2005  at  11:20 AM
The pic is a fake. Look at the shdows. In the lower right hand corner you see showdows of the sea wall withthe sun being oriented to the upper right of the picture. If the wave were real you would also see the shadow of the wave.
Posted by Rickfromnh  on  Wed Jan 19, 2005  at  11:33 AM
To see a good picture showing the same location (in Chile) go to:


Don
Posted by Don  on  Wed Jan 19, 2005  at  01:21 PM
Thanks, Don. I just updated the post with that info.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Wed Jan 19, 2005  at  01:59 PM
I've been to phuket, spend a week there, and there's no place on the island that looks like that. There's only one high-point on the island, and this photo shows multiple ridges.

AND

Even if I was blind when I was there, the major town in Phuket is on the northeast side of the island, shielded by the island itself from any waves from Indonesia.
Posted by Paul  on  Sat Jan 29, 2005  at  09:19 AM
I
Posted by Eddie_Torretti  on  Sun Jul 17, 2005  at  09:34 PM
its badly photoshoped as well
Posted by gav  on  Thu Aug 04, 2005  at  07:55 AM
I thought that the tsaumi was as big as both the world trade centers on top of each other. It doesn't matter if that picture was real, because soon enough there will waves 4X the size of that. With global warming and how we are killing the earth. I hope everyone survive 2012. Good luck.
Posted by sha davis  on  Mon Nov 05, 2007  at  10:08 AM
Other than the location, this photo is a hoax. While the real wave was certainly devastating, a wave this high would require something the equivalent of an asteroid hitting the planet or a massive landslide, and secondly, although people call a tsunami a tidal wave it is really a large area of the ocean that very suddenly is raised up to a higher level and hence tries to pour onto the lower area around it. If the sea went up by 10ft then it would flow onto land until it reached the point where the land had risen by 10ft or so. In many coastal areas this point could be many miles inland. This is why tsuanmis are so devastating, the water just doesn't stop. But generally they are not huge hollywood type waves crashing in like this picture.
Posted by Dave  on  Mon Aug 24, 2009  at  06:58 AM
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