Tilly Smith (born 1994) is an English woman who has been credited with saving the lives of about 100 beachgoers at Maikhao Beach in Thailand by warning them minutes before the arrival of the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian ocean earthquake Smith, who was ten years old at the time, had learned about tsunamis in her geography class.
Smith learned about tsunamis in a geography lesson two weeks before the tsunami from her teacher Andrew Kearney at Danes hill school in Oxshott, surrey. She recognized the signs of receding water from the shoreline and frothing bubbles on the surface of the sea and alerted her parents, who warned others on the beach and the staff at the hotel in Phuket where they were staying. The beach was evacuated before the tsunami reached shore, and was one of the few beaches on the island with no reported casualties.
Smith's family declined requests to be interviewed by commercial and national broadcasters, but Smith appeared at the united nation in November 2005, where she met the U.N. Special Envoy for Tsunami Relief, bill Clinton and at the first anniversary in Phuket, as part of a campaign to highlight the importance of education.
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