TSUNAMI survivor Sharon Howard sobs as she lays flowers at the Thailand hotel where she last saw her fiance and two sons 20 years ago to the day. While families around the country gather for Christmas, Sharon is 6,000 miles from her home in Hayle, Cornwall, at the beach resort of Khao Lak where David Page, 44, Mason, eight, and six-year-old Taylor died on Boxing Day 2004.
![[Tsunami survivor Sharon Howard recalls how that fateful day derailed her life and explains why she felt compelled to return this Christmas]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/features-sharon-howard-home-hayle-945170406.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The trio were among the thousands — including 151 Brits — who lost their lives when an earthquake in the Indian Ocean with a force 23,000 times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb triggered 100ft-high waves. The wall of water and debris hit coastal resorts in South East Asian countries including Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
![[Sharon with fiance David and her sons Mason and Taylor]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/mason-page-david-page-st-3455165.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
The Boxing Day Tsunami, as it became known, killed more than 227,000 people, making it the worst natural disaster of the 21st century. Sharon, now 57, recalls how that fateful day derailed her life and explains why she felt compelled to return this Christmas even though her family could not understand her decision to make the long journey.
![[Sharon Howard sobs as she lays flowers at the Thailand hotel where she last saw her fiance and two sons 20 years ago]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12-01-05-pic-brian-3212431.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Sharon still lives in the family home where she raised Mason and Taylor with David. Happy pictures of the four together — including many taken on that tragic holiday — line the walls. Two decades on, they are never far from her mind. “I was dreading going back to Thailand, absolutely dreading it, but it’s something I had to do for myself,” she says.
![[The Boxing Day Tsunami killed more than 227,000 people, making it the worst natural disaster of the 21st century]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/429-people-dead-missing-sri-959764932.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
