LONDON, Dec 28: A British couple narrowly escaped death three times as massive tidal waves slammed into their Thai holiday resort, they related in a newspaper account on Tuesday.

"Why we survived, I can't tell you," Andrew Oliver, 38, told the Express daily. "There is nothing we purposely did which saved us. "It is as though we were simply in the right place at the right time while other people were not so fortunate."

He and his wife Louise Oliver bought tickets to go diving off the tourist resort of Phuket, but the boat's captain refused to take them on board saying it was too full. The boat was submerged in the tidal waves triggered by a massive undersea earthquake off Indonesia, the Express added, without giving a direct source.

Unaware of the unfolding tragedy, the Olivers, from Bournemouth in southern England, had then booked onto a smaller boat to eat in a restaurant on a local island. But the first tsunami engulfed the restaurant where they were due to dine.

The couple managed to get onto the beach and then onto higher ground before a second tidal wave swept ashore, carrying many others who had remained on the beach to their death.

"We knew something was wrong on the second boat when the water seemed to just suck itself out as we approached the island," Andrew Oliver said. "Then it came rushing back in and those poor people disappeared, along with the restaurant we were supposed to be going to." -AFP