Yup, fake.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_tsunami_picture.htm

From the link above:

>
Comments:  Virtually everyone who has submitted this image for authentication expressed disbelief, and small wonder. Given the enormity of the actual event, this is a snapshot which, if real, would have appeared on the front page of every major newspaper in the world by now. But it hasn't. It is evidently the work of a prankster who combined two entirely unrelated photographs into a striking, but bogus, montage. 

In one version of the accompanying email the locale is specified as Phuket, Thailand; in another, Indonesia. Neither is plausible, however, because in both places vehicles are driven on the left side of the road, not the right, as shown here. 

Nor does the form and magnitude of this wave match eyewitness accounts or authentic images of the tsunamis that actually struck parts of Thailand, Indonesia and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. Those waves didn't crest at a height of twenty storeys and crash down on the shoreline as depicted here. On the contrary, the waters were described as rising swiftly and steadily to a maximum height of around 10 meters (less, in most cases) as they swept relentlessly inland, retreated, and swept inland again. 

In short, the image above represents someone's fantasy of what a tsunami looks like, not the real deal - as if the real deal and the devastation it caused weren't fantastic enough in the first place. 
>

-----Original Message-----
From: Pre-patinated plastic gumby block w/ coin slot [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Met History
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 2:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BP] photo forwarded to me by a registered architect ....


...the more i look at it the faker it seems.  stated to be indonesia.  christopher

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