[monday]

"I suspect that most, if not all, of the people in all three pictures are dead, but if the photographer survived, some of them may have also. "

The ones that survived are most certainly the ones running away from the wave in the first pic. The three women are probably dead.

[RobRoy]

I've been caught in a fairly major wave while body surfing the southeastern coast of Oahu. It was like being in a giant washing machine. And letting the wave pass was almost not enough. Just as I was running out of air, I made the surface, only to be pushed down by another wave. I almost died that day. Don't believe me? You should have seen the look on the lifeguards face when he got to me. I was standing in a foot of water with my swimming trunks around one ankle.

That wave was a tiny fraction of the power in the waves - no, make that "WALL OF WATER" - in these pictures. These people don't have a chance, outside the grace of God.