Listen to the animals

Elephants in Sri Lanka and Sumatra moved to high ground before the giant waves struck; they did the same in Thailand, trumpeting before they did so. According to a villager in Bang Koey, Thailand, a herd of buffalo was grazing by the beach when the animals ‘suddenly lifted their heads and looked out to sea, ears standing upright’; they turned and stampeded up the hill, followed by bewildered villagers, whose lives were thereby saved. At Ao Sane beach, near Phuket, dogs ran up to the hill tops, and at Galle in Sri Lanka dog owners were puzzled by the fact that their animals refused to go for their usual morning walk on the beach. In Cuddalore District in Tamil Nadu, southern India, buffaloes, goats and dogs escaped, as did a nesting colony of flamingos that flew to higher ground. In the Andaman Islands ‘stone age’ tribal groups moved away from the coast before the disaster, having been alerted by the behaviour of animals.

How did they know? The usual speculation is that the animals picked up tremors caused by the under-sea earthquake. This explanation seems unconvincing to me. There would have been tremors all over Southeast Asia, not just in the afflicted coastal areas. And if...

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