The Tsunami Museum, Khao Lak
A small museum at Bang Niang recording the 2004 tsunami on the Khao Lak coast.
The Tsunami Museum, Khao Lak
The Tsunami Museum stands at Bang Niang, a short distance from the police boat memorial, and documents what happened along this coast on 26 December 2004. Khao Lak lost more people than anywhere else in Thailand.
The displays are modest and largely photographic - the shoreline before and after, the wave arriving, the clearance that followed - together with recovered objects and survivor accounts. A model shows how the shape of the sea floor off this coast amplified the wave, which is why Khao Lak was hit so much harder than beaches further south.
It is small enough to see in half an hour, and is generally visited with the memorials nearby, which carry the physical evidence the museum explains.
- Lam Ru National Park Viewpoint — Lam Ru National Park Viewpoint: A Coastal Lookout South of Khao Lak The Lam Ru National Park Viewpoint sits inside Khao Lak-Lam...
- Khao Lak-Lam Ru National Park — Forested hills running down to the Andaman shore, with headland viewpoints above the coast road.
- Bang Niang, Khao Lak — The beach and village north of Nang Thong, with Khao Lak's largest market.
- Nang Thong Beach, Khao Lak — The main beach at Khao Lak - a long grey-gold strand backed by casuarinas and the village behind.
- Police Boat 813 Tsunami Memorial, Khao Lak — A patrol boat carried two kilometres inland by the 2004 tsunami, left where it came to rest.
