Fox News Flash top entertainment and celebrity headlines are here. Twenty years ago, Petra Nemcova was waking up the morning after Christmas and preparing to leave her vacation in Thailand when disaster struck. In 2004, Nemcova was 25 years old and vacationing with her fashion photographer boyfriend, Simon Atlee, when a tsunami ripped through their bungalow along the Andaman coast.
A 9.5-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia caused the world's worst tsunami. Petra Nemcova recalled the "pain" she still feels 20 years after the devastating Thailand tsunami.
(Getty Images) Atlee was swept away by the waves and not found for three months, and the young supermodel was forced to cling to a palm tree for eight hours to survive. SUPERMODEL PETRA NEMCOVA RECALLS ‘SPLIT SECONDS’ BEFORE SHE ALMOST DIED IN 2004 TSUNAMI ABC News’ Diane Sawyer interviewed Nemcova ahead of the 20th anniversary of the tragic natural disaster. The now-45-year-old said that the pain of hearing children's screams and not being able to help them is still "strongly" with her "every single day.
" "It's always difficult to go back in that moment when my life changed." "It's always difficult to go back in that moment when my life changed," she told Sawyer. On Dec.
26, 2004, Nemcova and Atlee were staying in Khao Lak, Thailand – preparing to end their trip when the tsunami hit. Speaking of depending on a palm tree for her survival, Nemcova said, "I went into this stillness, into almost like a meditat.
