Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post was on holiday in Weligama, Sri Lanka

Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky.
I was taking my morning swim around the island that my brother had bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise, 200 yards from one of the world's most beautiful beaches.
I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at me, "Come back! Come back! There's something strange happening with the sea."

He was swimming behind me, but closer to the shore. I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. There was barely a ripple in the sea. My brother's house rests on a rock 60 feet above the level of the sea. Then I noticed that the water around me was rising, climbing up the rock walls of the island with astonishing speed.

In less than a minute, the water level had risen at least 15 feet, but the sea remained calm, with barely a wave in sight. Within minutes, the beach and the area behind it had become an inland sea that rushed over the road and poured into the flimsy houses on the other side. I grabbed a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road.

After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I did not realise was that the floodwaters would recede as quickly and dramatically as they had risen.

All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed.
Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current. The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings, and were bobbing up and down furiously.
I swam in the direction of a loose catamaran, grabbed the hull and pulled myself to safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down, and soon I was stranded on the sand.
As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screams were coming from the houses beyond the road, many of which were still half-full of water that had trapped the inhabitants inside.
Villagers were walking, stunned, along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place. The waves raged around the island for the rest of the day, alternately rising and receding.

VBA

Ian Glover, 70, was holidaying near Phuket, Thailand

For me, it was a lucky day. I decided to go out to the Similan Islands, a popular diving spot about 60 miles north of Phuket. I was staying in a little bungalow near Thap Lamu, a small port. We left our bungalows at about 8am, and put out from port at 9.20am. The place was packed with tourists.

It had been a full moon so there was a high tide and the water was disturbed. Out to sea, the crew started getting excited. They heard on their mobiles that there had been a big storm and the earth had moved in Phuket. I thought that was unlikely, because the area is not tectonically unstable at all. Locals say there hasn't been an earthquake in Thailand since the 15th century.
We didn't notice anything out to sea. There was no huge wave; the ocean simply rose up and the tsunami only built up near the shore. But then we saw lots of debris washing around - bushes, trees and logs. The water was normally clear but now it was brown. We turned back to port and we saw the Thai navy and a lot of other boats heading out to sea, fast.

We could see the wooden jetties were destroyed, and most of the buildings around the harbour. The crew were saying 'hurry, hurry, there may be more water coming'. The captain of our boat heard his house had been destroyed. There were cars overturned, pushed into rivers. I checked out my bungalow. It wasn't a bamboo shack - it had a tiled roof and wooden floors - but it had been destroyed. The restaurant and the other bungalows had disappeared as well.

We were driven three miles inland in a pick-up and left by the main road. We waited for hours, then I got a lift to Phuket airport. I thought I'd be waiting for days, but I got on a flight to Bangkok.

We were all incredibly lucky. If I hadn't decided to go out to sea, I would have been lounging on the beach or sitting on the veranda when the tsunami struck. All I lost was my mobile, a few clothes and my iPod.

VBA

David Quinn, 38, was with his mother Kathleen Quinn, 67, both from Liverpool, at Patong Beach, Phuket

We were walking from the hotel towards the promenade to go to the beach. We had got as far as the Kodak shop to put our films in to be developed when we saw the crowds looking out to sea.

In a moment everyone started screaming. There was a huge wall of water coming towards the beach. We turned and ran towards our hotel - but we just kept running. Everything was getting washed away or smashed up. I saw people sucked under cars. It was horrendous.

We ran to higher ground where we thought it would be safer, and eventually climbed on a roof. People were terrified. One woman was crying like crazy.

After a while a wagon came past and we got on board because we were told another one [tidal wave] was coming. We stayed in the mountains for the rest of the day. A Thai guy put us up; from his place we could see the beach. Suddenly the tide retreated about half a mile very fast and then another huge wave came onto the beach.
We came down at about 5pm to see what state the hotel was in.

Luckily our hotel had been bypassed, because it was slightly raised compared to everything else. We thought everything would have been gone, but it was fine. We lost nothing. Everything else was devastated. We saw what was left of the Kodak shop: there was a bus on top of it. We would have been dead if we had gone into the shop; we had been seconds away from death.

We're here with my sister and her son. Last night we all slept in one room because we gave our other room to a couple from Birmingham who'd lost everything. It was the least we could do. We've decided to stay until we were meant to leave, on Saturday. The rep came today to see how we all were. Some people are leaving but we thought we would just get stuck at the airport - and as the hotel was fine, we thought, 'why not?'.

VBA