Tilly Smith

Tilly Smith (born 1994) is a British woman who, as a girl aged 10, was credited with saving nearly a hundred foreign tourists at Maikhao Beach in Thailand by warning beachgoers minutes before the arrival of the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

Early life

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 recognised the warning 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 on 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.

At Danes Hill Preparatory School a cameraman was allowed to follow Smith around for a day to find out what she normally did at school. Kearney was also interviewed at the school.

Smith's family declined requests to be interviewed by commercial and national broadcasters, but Smith appeared at the United Nations in November 2005, where she met 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.

Education

Smith was educated at Danes Hill School, an independent school in the village of Oxshott in Surrey, followed by Stowe School, a boarding independent school in the civil parish of Stowe in Buckinghamshire.

Honours and awards

On 9 September 2005 Smith received the Thomas Gray Special Award of The Marine Society & Sea Cadets from Second Sea Lord, Vice-Admiral Sir James Burnell-Nugent.

Asteroid 20002 Tillysmith has been named after her. (See Meanings of asteroid names (20001-21000).)

In December 2005, Smith was named "Child of the Year" by the French magazine Mon Quotidien. At the official tsunami commemorations on the first anniversary of the tsunami held at Khao Lak, Thailand on 26 December 2005, she was given the honour of reading a poem to thousands of spectators.

"It wasn't devastation or death that won the day. It was humanity that triumphed, the shining victory of generosity, courage, love."

— from poem by Naowarat Pongpaiboon[1]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Tsunami remembrance ceremony Khaolak commemoration Andaman coastal provinces, 26 December 2007, retrieved 2008-03-19

External links