An eight-year-old woman who managed to survive the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand 20 years ago unscathed thanks to an elephant “makes you grateful for everything that happened to you”.
On December 26, 2004, Amber Owen, 28, from Milton Keynes, was on holiday in Phuket when a magnitude-9.1 earthquake struck under the sea in northern Indonesia.
She claimed the lives of 230,000 people, but she brought to safety the elephant, Ningnong, on which she was riding at the time the first wave hit.
Miss Owen's story inspired children's author Michael Morpurgo to write a book, called Running Wild, which was adapted into a stage play.
The 28-year-old, who now lives in Northampton, said at the time she “didn't quite understand what was going on”.
Amber works in sales for a market research firm (Amber Mason)
She said she was staying at a hotel in Phuket, with her mother and father, over the holiday season.
Early on Boxing Day, she was in the bathroom with her mother Samantha Miles, when “the room started shaking, none of us knew what was going on, things were just moving, no nothing was too bad, so we thought nothing of it. and went for breakfast.”
Most days she went to the children's club, which had resident elephants Ningnong and Yumyum, and that morning she rode Ningnong's back down to the beach.
A series of waves caused by an earthquake devastated parts of Thailand, including Phuket (Getty Images)
She noticed that the water had gone “quite a long way back” leaving lumpy sand and fish.
“I don't know what happened, but there was a noise or something and all the animals on the beach started running away.
“I was still with the elephant handler and suddenly the water started coming in, the elephant just pulled away, ran through the water and I was taken to the top -concrete floor, at the hotel.
“I could tell the animals knew what was going on.”
She said that since there were a large number of lakes around the hotel, most of the water was filtered into them, so it was not as bad as other areas.
After several days of trying to get flights, the family flew home on New Year's Eve, December 31.
Amber (right) was able to see Running Wild when it was made into a stage show (Amber Owen)
Her story was covered with the mediaand “he's always followed me around”, she said.
“It was good to read out of all the terrible reading,” she said.
She said that Morpurgo, the author of War Horse, was inspired by her story to write Running Wild, and she got to meet him, and the cast of the play, which was amazing.
“It's been part of my journey in life, it makes you grateful for everything that's happened to you,” she said.
“Things happen for a reason, and this was my reason – you just have to live life.
“It shows the instincts of an elephant and promotes them as an animal.”
Amber said there were two elephants living at the hotel and she regularly fed them bananas (Amber Owen)
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