How did an entire island SURVIVE the tsunami?

This is required reading. It is a remarkable story on how did an entire population survived the 2004 tsunami.

The people of Simeulue Island are smart. And they are survivors. Most of the the people of Simeulue Island, just 40 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake, survived the 2004 tsunami. Nearby Banda Aceh lost over 100,000 people. But the people of Simeulue have been taught a simple lesson from their grandmothers, “If an earthquake comes, we must always go and look at the beach. If we see a low tide, we must run for the hills.” In 2004, the locals new a “smong” was coming. On Simeulue island, off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, in the Defayan language the word is smong means tsunami. And when they felt the earthquake and saw the low tide, they ran. And their lives were saved.  Most of the 83,000 people survived. Even the buffalos knew something was wrong when the earthquake happened. The buffalo ran for the hills.

Video: How the people of Simeulue survived the 2004 Tsunami