I saw that picture on Drudge - not the one he has up now, but one he had up this morning - of a wave going over houses, and couldn’t imagine then how anyone could survive something like that, much less the entire scope of the tsunami that wasn’t even captured in that image. There would just be no hope of survival if you were outdoors at the time (or even indoors, I’d think). I don’t want to believe a number like 88,000, there’s probably a lot of confusion and people just not accounted for right now, but it’s going to be a terrible number either way. Just a horrible, horrible event.
They had some warning. And they live in a region that is used to dealing with tsunamis, so I imagine most people got to higher ground.