krabi tsunami satellite photo

i've always been interested in satellite photos and have been looking at the various images of the tsunami damage on the internet. surfing around i found an interesting satellite photo taken the morning of the tsunami which appears to show the wave itself.


i don't know the exact scale of this photo- i would guess 50km from left to right as it is about a half a degree longitude. the city of krabi is located at the northernmost point of the water, its airport faintly visible to the northeast of the city. koh phi phi is just to the southwest of this image.


zooming in closer one can see some disturbance in the water showing up as a light blue color, especially just to the north of koh jam in the center of the image. for the full size (1104x1924, 755k) image, click here.


closer still, one can see the actual rush of water, with strong waves also following behind. even with so many imaging satellites in orbit, it's still amazing that this image managed to be taken during the time of the tsunami.