Africa: The tsunami also hit Somalia in east Africa. Rob Crilley is one of the first journalists to reach the affected area of Hafun
For several minutes the Indian Ocean just disappeared, sucked out from the shoreline more than half a mile.
The sea bed in front of Hafun - a fishing town of 8,000 people - writhes with hundreds of lobsters. Hassan Mohamed (26) was at a friend's concrete-block home on the edge of town.
"When the water disappeared people came out to watch it," he said yesterday, almost two weeks after the event.
Seconds later the water returned, rushing onto the sandy beach and racing through the town. Four times Hafun was pounded by the surge. Mohamed had to wait for the water to recede before he could check on his home.
"It was already demolished. My uncle and his son died in the house," he said. "Only his wife could be saved."
These are the invisible victims of the tsunami that swept around the Indian Ocean, hidden from view until now.
Hafun, in the north-east corner of Somalia, bore the brunt of the wave as it slammed into the African coast.
Local officials say 19 bodies have been recovered, with more than 140 fishermen still missing.
But no one really knows the death toll. This town of flimsy houses in the shadow of a crumbling, Italian-era salt warehouse, swells every December with families who come to fish for the plentiful lobster and shark.
Its surviving population has moved inland, camping in makeshift shelters of plywood and plastic sheeting distributed by the United Nations.
The old homes are nothing more than piles of bricks and beams torn into kindling. Shredded nets, old suitcases and boat engines lie broken among the rubble. As he surveys the wreckage of his town, Abshir Abdi Tangi, Mayor of Hafun, says: "We need houses. We have lost everything - fishing equipment, nets, homes and shops."
Hafun sits with its nose barely above water on a razor-flat peninsula in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
Even after travelling 3,750 miles from Indonesia, the tsunami penetrated more than a mile inland. The overall death toll in Somalia is estimated at 200, with 30,000 people in urgent need of food, water and shelter - tiny by comparison with the tragedy on the far side of the Indian Ocean.
"We did not expect this, we could not predict it - there was no way," said Mr Tangi.
Yet Kenya, bordering Somalia to the south, did expect the tsunami. Kenyan authorities - aware of the disaster unfolding in Asia - had warned its fishing fleet to return to port and had closed its tourist beaches by the time the waves arrived at midday.
But Somalia is a broken country. There are no roads, phones or electricity in most of Puntland.
Rival warlords have carved the country into kingdoms since the bloody collapse of Somalia's government 14 years ago. African Union troops are due to arrive in the capital, Mogadishu, on Monday as the first step before a transitional government can return from Nairobi.
Hafun lies at the end of a 12-hour drive through semi-arid bush from the nearest air strip. The journey can only be made with armed guards. Aid has arrived, albeit slowly. United Nations teams are still assessing the damage.
So far 56 metric tonnes of maize, lentils and vegetable oil has been delivered as World Food Programme (WFP) trucks navigate the dunes and bogs around Hafun.
Maulid Warfa, WFP officer, said the country's bloody history and a series of natural disasters meant its population was clinging to survival.
"There have been three major shocks here that followed one after the other. First there was four years of drought, then rains last year that brought flooding and killed livestock. And now this, in a country with no government, where it is so difficult to deliver help."
For now, clean water is the greatest priority.
Queues form at the shallow sandy pits where cloudy water collects.
The tiny frame of Fahmo Mohamed Mohamud (11) disappears into the two feet hole as she scoops water into an old vegetable oil can.
"We use it for washing, and if there is no other water, we drink it," she says, wrinkling her nose. "I don't like it. It's salty."
The town wells are unusable. Some have collapsed, while others are flooded with sea water.
Without clean water, says Dr Abdullah Omar Asad, health workers fear epidemics of disease. He and a colleague have treated more than 500 patients suffering from dermatitis, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
"We need medicine and food, but first we need water," he says.
The people of Hafun need more than water if they are to maintain their precarious life on the edge of the Indian Ocean.
Yesterday, the turquoise water lapped benignly at the beach's edge.
In his ruined shop, Mohamud Mohamed (35) points out the tide mark, six and a half feet up one wall. Its sandy floor is covered with empty flour sacks.
He lost $8,000 in cash and stock - everything he owned and his livelihood are gone.
For now, he says he is thankful to be alive. "We thought it was D Day," he says with a relieved chuckle. "We thought the world was finished."