AROUND 2 am on December 25, Davis Li and his 48 colleagues at Fleishman-Hillard China flew from Shanghai and Beijing to Thailand's Phuket Island. What awaited them - along with the sun-soaked beaches they enjoyed last year - was a terrible and unexpected tsunami.

The four-star hotel in which they stayed was the Club Andaman Bach Resort Hotel, located near Patong Beach, only 100 metres from the sea.

According to the original plan, they would take a boat to Phi Phi Island on December 26. Due to minor hitch, the travel programme was postponed for a day. "We even quarreled with the guides about the changes in the programme arrangement. But the change ended up saving us all," said Li.

On the morning of December 26, some of Li's colleagues were sleeping in their rooms, some were having massages or playing cards, when the tsunami struck. Li and another colleague were resting beside the hotel swimming pool in the garden.

"I should have been jogging on the beach. But a slight stomach upset stopped me - maybe I had eaten some spoilt food or ingested some sea water when diving," said Li.

Around 9:30 am, the wind suddenly became stronger and colder, so they went to their rooms to fetch blankets.

"Minutes later, I happened to raise my head and saw my colleague standing transfixed in the swimming pool. As I looked in the same direction he was facing, I saw people on the beach running back towards the hotel," said Li.

"My first thought at that time was that terrorists in helicopters must be attacking tourists on the beach, because I heard a low and heavy throbbing that sounded just like helicopters," recalled Li, who had discussed the possibility of terrorist events with his colleagues earlier.

"But then, I saw that huge yellow waves, at least five metres high, were chasing the running tourists," Li said.

"After a few seconds, we grasped the nature of the disaster and ran back to the hotel, which fortunately was located on a small hill."

All of sudden, roaring muddy water was swirling around the hotel, destroying almost everything on the beach, the garden of the hotel and the swimming pool. Boats and vehicles were swept by the water into the hotel.

"After several waves, the lobby of the hotel was full of tourists who had fled the beach, crying or wounded - with bleeding heads, hands and legs scratched. Several old people were suffering from heart problems," said Li.

"I will never forget the sad crying of one foreign woman, who was running all around the hall calling out the name of family members lost in the tsunami," said Li.

Li and his colleagues were safe, gathered on the hotel's fifth floor. Five of them had set out towards the sea, but fortunately they had missed the scheduled boat. The sailors had stopped them after noting the sea was abnormal.

The same good luck saved another Shanghai family, that of Li Bei, her husband and young son. "We were scheduled to take a boat to a small island not far from Phuket. But we were late and stopped by the police after the first stage of the tsunami. The island was totally submerged after the tsunami," she said.

However, Li Bei's two colleagues, Sun Chen and Lu Rong, together with Sun's mother did experience the tsunami on the beach. They were struck by the waves and carried several hundred metres away from the beach.

Lu hugged a pillar and survived without injury. Sun didn't realize what happened at all and awoke to find her right wrist had been broken.

That night, Davis Li and his colleagues stayed in a hotel located in the downtown. The next day, they returned to the hotel to collect their luggage. "I found all the familiar things along the beach had either disappeared or changed completely. The beach where I used to jog was a terrible mess, scattered with rubbish and debris," said Li.

Even though 10 days have passed, survivors and those who experienced the tsunami haven't recovered from the accident.

"I was asked by a local doctor to translate a notice into Chinese - explaining how to identify the bodies of family members. His clinic was full of wounded people and dead bodies," said Li.

"Although I didn't see any dead bodies myself, I still can't rid my mind of depressing thoughts, even now."