Afterwards

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After the tsunami was over, there was a huge cleanup job to be done. Bodies had to be found, identified and buried or cremated. Refugees had to be given food and shelter. Homes and businesses had to be rebuilt.

Here, in this photo, the staff from a school are trying to clear up so that children can come back to school again.

Many people from around the world sent money and medicines to help the people in this region, and people from everywhere wanted to know about what had happened, and look at photos or film footage. Unfortunately, sometimes you can't believe everything you see on the internet.

Many sites used photos like this to show the tsunami, and how people went to look at it, and were killed. It's a good photo, isn't it?

And what about this one, showing people just standing there watching?

The only thing is, these aren't photos of the tsunami at all. They were taken in 2002 of a tidal bore (unusually high tides resulting in waters flowing upstream at high speeds) on the Qian Tang Jiang River, in Hangzhou, China. Tidal bores occur at predictable times, and watching these events is a four-day-long government-sponsored tourist festival in China, so there were plenty of people and photographers on hand to observe.

But in newspapers and emails and websites around the world, these were shown as being photos of the tsunami. Don't always believe what you see!