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Agitated elephants sensed the catastrophe coming, and their sensitivity saved a dozen foreign tourists from the fate of thousands others who were killed by the giant waves.
The elephants started trumpeting - in a way which could only be described as crying - at first light, about the time a massive earthquake cracked open the sea bed off Indonesia's Sumatra Island.
The elephants calmed down but began wailing again an hour later, and this time they couldn't be comforted. They just kept running for the hill.
Those elephants with tourists aboard headed for the jungle-clad hill behind the resort beach where at least thousands, more than half of them foreigners, would soon die.
Only a dozen tourists ran toward the hill. The mahouts managed to turn the elephants to lift the tourists onto their backs. The huge beasts used their trunks to pluck foreigners from the ground and deposit them on their backs. Then the elephants charged up the hill toward the jungle.

Buffalo, also sensing the approaching danger, led an entire village people to the safety of higher ground.
More than a 100 buffalo were grazing near the beach when the entire herd suddenly lifted their heads and looked out to sea, ears standing upright. They turned and stampeded up the hill. Bewildered villagers ran after the buffaloes fearing the beasts would be lost.
Within minutes of the villagers making their way to the hilltop, the huge tidal waves slammed into the fishing community.
"Not a single one of us sustained a scratch."

December 28, 2004
Hua Hin, Thailand