An inquest into the death of three Irish people in last year's Asian tsunami heard the tragic stories of family members' search for their loved ones.
A Irishman whose girlfriend died in thedisaster said today a last-minute change of travel plans meant they were having breakfast on an idyllic beach as the deadly waves began to roll ashore.
Barry Murphy told the inquest into Eilis Finnegan's death that his last glimpse of her alive was as she ran ahead of him to escape the surging water on December 26th last year.
Mr Murphy told the inquest in Dublin that the couple were just passing through Phi Phi island and had sat down to order breakfast on the beach while they waited to travel on to another location.
"I noticed the water lapping up from the beach," he said. "The water was lapping up the beach, over the pavement towards us. It didn't come in as a big wave, just the tide coming in. Initially we didn't think it was anything that serious."
When they later began running from the ahead of the water, Ms Finnegan was ahead of Mr Murphy, the inquest heard.
She was 10 to 15 feet ahead of me," Mr Murphy said, adding that the water was up to his knees. He dashed into a row of shops for shelter when he was no longer able to run. "I was using the wall to break the surge of the wave, but the walls collapsed on both sides and the roof caved in."
Family members of the three Irish victims of the earthquake disaster - Ms Finnegan (27), Lucy Coyle (29) and Michael Murphy (24) - told Dublin City Coroner's Court they looked at hundreds of bodies and searched through thousands of pictures in a bid to identify the remains of their loved ones.
Gardai, who travelled to Thailand also met the family of another Irish citizen, Conor Keightley from Co Tyrone, whose body was identified in January and repatriated to Northern Ireland.
Three of the Irish citizens were holidaying on Phi Phi island, while Michael Murphy's last known location was Khao Lak. Mr Murphy brother, Paul, who attended the hearing today, said he last heard from his brother through a text message in the early hours of December 26th.
In a phone call on Christmas Day, Michael had told him he intended to travel to Bangkok the next day. Paul Murphy told the inquest he was close to his brother and they were in frequent contact after his visit to Sydney, where Michael had been spending a year working.
"On Christmas day at 2pm I phoned Michael from the mobile and he informed me he was on Khao Lak and intended to travel to Bangkok the next day." After news of the tsunami spread to Ireland, Paul said he frantically tried to reach his brother.
He travelled to Thailand, he said: "I searched every day for four days. I looked at hundreds of bodies but I couldn't find him."
On April 29th, the information centre in Thailand confirmed the body of the nautical science student had been identified. Mr Murphy was identified through dental charts and fingerprints, which were lifted from some of his lecture notes from the Cork Institute of Technology.
The inquest heard Lucy Coyle, who had been living and working as an accountant in London for two years, was on holiday in the region with her Welsh-born boyfriend Sean Sweetman.
The court heard through a deposition from Ms Coyle's mother, Joan, that she had rang from Phi Phi island on Christmas Day and said she was looking to get a waterfront bungalow. The court heard that Mr Sweetman, who also worked with her in London, had planned to go scuba diving the following day.
State pathologist Prof Narie Cassidy told the inquest that all three deaths were not inconsistent with drowning.
The Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, passed a verdict of death as a result of a natural disaster in all three cases. He said it was "one of the greatest natural disasters of modern times".
"I would like to remember the very large number of families all over the world who have been bereaved as a result of fatalities form the tsunami disaster," he said. "The evidence that has been given here has confirmed the seriousness and devastation of the disaster itself."