At first, there seemed nothing to be afraid of. Joe Giardina, his wife, Evanna, and their 16-year-old son, Paul, were taking in the picture-perfect waters of Patong bay as they ate breakfast in their Phuket beachfront hotel on Boxing Day morning in 2004.
“We were admiring the view and all of a sudden the water disappeared,” says Giardina, 67, speaking from his home in Rosanna, Victoria. The water level had dropped so quickly that fish were floundering on the exposed seabed. But rather than sensing any threat, curious onlookers made their way to the beach. “The locals thought, ‘This is fantastic.’ They were running around picking the fish up.”
