AFTER THE WAVE

Twenty years ago, the Boxing Day tsunami tore across the Indian Ocean, shredding towns, villages and holiday resorts, and killing hundreds of thousands of people from Indonesia to Africa. Three Australians share their memories of terror, loss and survival with The Weekly.

- JENNY BROWN, TIFFANY DUNK

The reminders are everywhere for bereaved father Joe Giardina. A beach ball bouncing near him, with nobody else in sight. A heart-shaped patch of condensation on the bedroom window, mirroring a framed snapshot of his late son, Paul. It's 20 years since the brutal Boxing Day tsunami killed an estimated 227,898 people. Sixteen-year-old Paul Giardina was one of 26 Australian victims.

Among the world's worst natural disasters, the tsunami was born of a massive undersea earthquake which ruptured the earth's crust just south of Banda Aceh in Indonesia and released the equivalent of two million atomic blasts' worth of energy over 10 minutes and across 1200 kilometres. The resulting ocean swell wiped out entire communities in 14 countries around the Indian Ocean, with waves up to 30 metres high.

The tsunami was as pitiless as it was capricious, washing away one family member while sparing another sheltering beside them. Newlywed Trisha Broadbridge, honeymooning on Thailand's Phi Phi Island, lost her AFL hero husband, Troy. Sydneysider Moi Vogel, who'd phoned home the previous day to tell her family she was pregnant, also perished. Tragically, the youngest Australian victim, six-month-old Melina Heppell, was swept from her father's arms. So too was Paul, the very special boy with Down syndrome, whose parents had nicknamed him the “love machine”.

To this day Paul's mother, Evanna, remains so distressed that she finds it impossible to share her thoughts outside of close family. But his father, Joe, gains solace from talking about Paul and his enduring legacy of unconditional joy.