The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is considered the most devastating tsunami on record. Is believed than more than 150,000 people may have lost their lives, many of them washed out to sea.
This tsunami is estimated to have released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The tsunami traveled as much as 3,000 miles (nearly 5,000 kilometers) to Africa, arriving with sufficient force to kill people and destroy property.

Source NOAA

What happens in a tsunami is the enormous force and weight of so much water sweeps away almost everything in its path. A third of the people who died in the Indian Ocean tsunami were children, many others didnÕt have enough strength to resist the force of the water. Many people were crushes by debris or killed when the sea hurled them against struc tures. In several places the tsunami announced itself with a rapid recede of the ocean.

Survivors reported were surprised because of how far was the ocean withdraw, exposing seafloor never seen before, stranding fish and boats on the sand. Tragically many people ran out onto the exposed seafloor to take pictures of the scene. Survivors, who knew what the receding ocean meant and that there was an extremely high possibility of a tsunami, tried to warn people and ran for high grounds. Experts say that the receding ocean may give people as much as five minutes warning to escape.
That may have given enough time for many people who died in the tsunami to escape and save themselves, if only they knew what it meant.
The Indian Ocean tsunami caused waves as high as 50 feet (15 meters) in some places, according to news reports. But in many other places survivors described a rapid surging of the ocean, more like an extremely powerful river or a flood. Witnesses said the approaching tsunami sounded like three freight trains or the roar of a jet. People who were together when the tsunami struck were separated in the torrent. Some survived; others succumbed or disappeared. A baby was found floating safely on a mattress.

Source Digital globe
A tsunami is a series of waves called wave train, and the first wave may not be the most dangerous. The waves of the tsunami wave train can be five minutes to an hour apart. Some people did not know this on December 26. Once the first wave had gone, they thought it was safe to go down to the beach. Witnesses of the Indian Ocean tsunami reported that the sea surged out as fast and as powerf ully as it came ashore. Many of the people that didn't perish by the water rushing inland, were swept out to sea when the ocean retreated.

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