thumb|352x352px|Map showing the provinces of Thailand affected
Thailand was one of the 18 countries greatly impacted by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami left behind unprecedented damage and destruction in six provinces of Thailand, impacting 407 villages, and completely destroying 47 of them, including prominent tourist resorts like Khao Lak. The disaster killed about 5,400 people in Thailand, including foreign tourists. In addition, 2,993 people were reported missing in Thailand. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami was a significant disaster event that impacted a vast population.
Tsunami
The tsunami was caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake located in Indonesia in the early morning of 26 December 2004. Almost all the major beaches on the Andaman coast suffered substantial damage, and all six of the coastal provinces along the Andaman Coast were obliterated. Khao Lak experienced the highest run-up of any tsunami wave height of any location aside from Sumatra. Due to the topography of the seabed, coastline and reefs offshore, the tsunami waves piled on top of themselves and in doing so, create the infamous 'disappearing sea effect' which enticed many tourists to their deaths. This effect is also known as the tsunami drawback.
The 2012 film The Impossible is based on the true story of the family of María Belón, who survived the 2004 tsunami, and was also based in Khao Lak. In The Impossible', the Belón family suffered an array of obstacles throughout the tsunami, and the film accurately portrays the disaster events, as they occurred in real time.
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami most notably caused a humanitarian toll, economic toll, and caused environmental and medical threats such as water pollution, flooding and diseases throughout all 18 countries it impacted.
The confidence of European tourists in travelling to places such as Phuket also took some time to recover, which is one reason why Thailand strongly backed the installed tsunami warning system. Thousands of Thais dependent on tourism-related industries lost their jobs, not just in the south but also in the poorest part of Thailand, Isan in the north-east, where many workers in the tourism industry come from. By 12 January, some of the affected resorts in the south had re-opened, and the Thai government had begun an advertising campaign to bring visitors back to the area as quickly as possible, though everyone knew it would be quite a while before Thailand was in a state of normalcy, professionals guessed around ten years.
The fishing industry was damaged by the extensive destruction of fishing boats and tackle, which individual fishing families could not afford to replace, particularly since many lost their homes as well. The tourism industry brings in a substantial amount of revenue for Thailand, as tourism has created many jobs for the people of Thailand. So, when this tsunami occurred, there was a significant amount of jobs lost in the industry, and also a 40% decrease of visitors to Thailand.
The resort area of Khao Lak around 80 km north of Phuket was hit far worse with 3,950 confirmed deaths. However, the death toll in Khao Lak may have exceeded 4,500. The final death toll was over 4,000, with local unofficial estimates topping 10,000 due to the lack of accurate government censuses and the fact that much of the migrant Burmese population was not documented nor recognized as legal residents. The severity of the situation in Khao Lak is probably explained by the fact, that unlike the high-rise hotels of Phuket, the village of Khao Lak only had low built bungalows instead of high-rise concrete hotels. Khao Lak also has an extensive area of flatland only a few meters above the sea level, on which most bungalows were situated. Bhumi Jensen, grandson of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej was among those killed in Khao Lak.
Just north of the Khao Lak area, the village of Ban Nam Khem was the worst affected in terms of devastation to the local population, with around 25% of its population of 4,200 lost to the tsunami and 80 percent of homes destroyed.
The force of the tsunami beached Thai navy boat 813 (Tor 813) almost inland from Bang Niang Beach.
thumb|Shelter built following the 2004 tsunami.
Others among the casualties were well-known Finnish musician and TV host Aki Sirkesalo and his family, and Imre von Polgar, guitarist for the Swedish rock band, The Watermelon Men. Almost four years old at the time, a young girl was swept away at Khao Lak and remained the subject of a media-covered intensive search despite being formally identified in August 2005 as a victim. Jane Holland (née Attenborough) the elder daughter of the film director and actor Richard Attenborough perished in the tsunami with several members of her family. Former President of Finland Sauli Niinistö and his adult son survived by clinging to a power pole.
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan=8 style="border-right:0px;";| Official figures as of 7 January 2005
|- bgcolor="#efefef"
| Province
| Thai deaths
| Foreign deaths
| Total deaths
| Thai injured
| Foreign injured
| Total injured
| Missing
|-
| Krabi||288||188||476||808||568||1,376||890
|-
| Phang Nga||1,950||2,213||4,163||4,344||1,253||5,597||2,113
|-
| Phuket||154||105||259||591||520||1,111||700
|-
| Ranong||167||2||169||215||31||246||12
|-
| Satun||6||0||6||15||0||15||0
|-
| Trang||3||2||5||92||20||112||1
|-
| Total||2,568||2,510||5,078||6,065||2,392||8,457||3,716
|}
<small>Source: Bangkok Post. The "total deaths" and "total injured" categories include dead and injured persons whose nationality is not given or has not been established. The number of "foreign injured" has been reduced by evacuations of foreign nationals. Thai sources acknowledge that the great majority of those listed as "missing" are in fact dead, and that a large majority of these are foreigners.</small>
An article in the Bangkok Post on 10 January suggested that some of the figures in this table may be seriously misleading. According to this article, the estimated number of deaths among Thai nationals has been reduced from about 2,500 to about 1,800, and the estimated number of deaths among foreigners has been reduced from 2,500 to 1,300. The number of deaths whose nationality has not been established has risen correspondingly, from less than 200 to about 2,100. This is due to increasing doubts about the reliability of the classification on the basis of visual identification of badly decomposed bodies into "Thai" and "foreign" categories. All bodies of unknown origin will now be DNA tested to determine their ethnic origin.
Lessons Learned from The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
Though the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami impacted millions of people in a wide variety of countries in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa, the impacts caused by the tsunami that occurred in Thailand results in many realizations made by Thai individuals, and government officials. Those in Thailand realized that in order to limit the impacts that a potential future tsunami may have, they must take certain actions including creating programs and warning systems.