"The Impossible" Is the True Story of a Family That Survived the 2004 Tsunami (2024)

• 2012's The Impossible, now on Netflix, is set in the aftermath of the deadly tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean in 2004.
• The movie is based on the true story of a Spanish family vacationing in Thailand when the tsunami struck, who miraculously reunited after being separated.
• This is where the family from The Impossible is now.

The harrowing 2012 film, The Impossible, which is now streaming on Netflix, follows a family of vacationers in the aftermath of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that struck land on December 24, 2004. Based on a true story, it stars Naomi Watts, Ewan MacGregor, and a young Tom Holland.

Considered the deadliest tsunami in recorded history, the 200-foot wave wiped away entire towns, and the lives of over 200,000 people across 14 countries, per The Telegraph. The tsunami first made contact in Indonesia and moved onto Thailand, where The Impossible takes place. The death toll in Thailand was nearly 5,400 including 2,000 foreign tourists, per History.com.

Miraculously, the family whose story is told in The Impossible all survived the disaster. Though the Bennet family in The Impossible is British, the real family that inspired the film is from Spain. María Belón, a physician, and her husband Enrique Álvarez were in Khao Lak, Thailand with their three sons, Lucas, Simón and Tomás when the tsunami struck. Here's a look back at their remarkable story, and where the family is now.

The family was on vacation in Thailand when the tsunami struck.

In 2004, the Belón-Álvarez family traveled to Orchid Resort Hotel in Khao Lak, Thailand for the Christmas holidays. At the time, they were living in Japan for Álvarez's job—just like the Bennetts in The Impossible. The tsunami arrived three days into their vacation, per the L.A. Times.

As in the movie, the family was gathered around the pool when it happened. "We were standing in the same positions around the same swimming pool where the families were standing that day," MacGregor said in an interview in 2012. "It was really real."

Belón's account of the moment the tsunami appeared is nearly as vivid as the scene in The Impossible. “We started to hear a very horrible sound. I was looking around thinking maybe this is just in my mind. No one recognized the sound. It felt like the Earth was coming apart but everything looked perfect. I was facing the sea and saw a huge black wall. I didn’t think it was the sea. I thought it was a black wall coming to get us," she told The Mirror in 2017.

Afterwards, Belón was swept away and separated from her husband and sons, who were in the swimming pool. According to her interview, Belón believed it "was the end" for all of them. Doctors told Belón that she was underwater for at least three minutes.

Miraculously, all five family members survived.

What happens next is what gave The Impossible its title. Against all odds, the family managed to reunite. "I'm here because I was so lucky, but there were many, many others who were not so lucky," Tomas said in 2016 during an interview with the UN on World Tsunami Day.

After being swept away, Belón managed to locate her son, Lucas, and grab onto a tree trunk. “Lucas and I were hugging in this tree, mostly in silence, but from time to time, he would say, ‘I’m happy, Mommy, that you are with me,’ and I said, ‘I’m happy I’m with you, Lucas.’ It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life,” she told People.

They were found and rescued by a Thai man. "The man wouldn’t allow me to die. He dragged me through the mud for a long time until he was sure I was in good hands," she told The Mirror. Elsewhere, Alvarez had lost the other sons. Clinging onto a tree, he was sure the boys had drowned—but he, too, reunited with them.

The family's reunion took place two days later, in the hospital where Belón was being treated for severe injuries to her thigh and chest, per the BBC. After life-saving surgery in Thailand, she spent four months recuperating in a hospital in Singapore.

Years later, The Impossible would film in that same hospital. "They were very happy with the idea of the film being made because it was a way of showing the world how they had behaved, which was extraordinary," director Juan Antonio Bayona told Set Decor.

Belón rescued a young boy named Daniel in the water.

Belón and her son, Lucas, rescued a young Swedish boy named Daniel while he was pulled out to sea. Daniel reunited with his father in the hospital. According to the L.A. Times, Belón and her family lost touch with the young boy, and don't know his whereabouts.

Later, she wrote a letter to Daniel's deceased mother, published in the L.A. Times. “It wasn’t your fault you died nor my fault I survived, it was fate. But fate has a sharp edge, it leaves wounds and buries scars. Fate isn’t always fair and that hurts. The pain is pain, but not guilt....That pain is like an invisible stone in my shoe, making it impossible to forget with every step, I’ll never get rid of it. The best I can do is to adapt to its presence," she wrote.

Filming The Impossible was cathartic for Belón and her family.

The family that inspired The Impossible was involved in the movie from start to finish. The process began with Belón recounting her story to filmmakers over the course of five hours—in one sitting. “When we first met, I had two objectives,” Belón told the L.A. Times in 2012. “One was trying to scare them and two was to look in their eyes and see if they were the ones who really wanted to swallow this big responsibility.”

Based on their response to the interview, Belón decided to trust the filmmakers. As filming proceeded, Belón wrote letters. "One, 'Delirium,' conveyed her fragile state in the hospital when she was losing pints of blood and facing death,'" the article reads.

Belón also met with Watts before filming, and helped inform the role. "I didn't want to pry too much. I didn't want to seem too actor-y. But she had so much to say, so it was perfect," Watts told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "And something that I didn't quite understand at the time was that she said she felt completely sure of her instinct. That nothing got in the way of it. And she'd never had that feeling before. Which made her incredibly heroic, because every decision she makes seemed to be the right one.

Today, the family from The Impossible is devoted to doing good.

The tsunami changed the course of the family's lives. Now living in Barcelona, 54-year-old Belón continues to work as a doctor, and is an advocate for tsunami survivors and a motivational speaker.

Alvárez volunteers with Proactiva Open Arms, an NGO dedicated to helping refugees arrive safely to the Greek island of Lesbos—a notoriously dangerous passage. Per a statistic from October 2019, 19,000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean since October 2013. “Having lived through certain situations in the past doesn’t desensitize you. Instead, you empathize more with others. Things feel closer,” Álvarez told The Huffington Post.

All three boys, like their parents, are devoted to philanthropy as well. Lucas—played by Tom Holland in the film—had a heroic moment of his own this summer while working as a doctor in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The 26-year-old studied at the University College in London.

Middle child Tomas chose to study at a university in Wales, specifically because of their rigorous lifeguard training program, he told the BBC. He, too, continues to raise awareness about tsunamis through his own experiences. "While it's important to reflect on the past, it's equally important to change the future," he said in an interview with the UN on World Tsunami Day in 2016.

Simon, the youngest who was 5 during the tsunami, now studies in the Netherlands. He also volunteers as a lifeguard with his father's NGO, per his LinkedIn.

Each year, the family gathers on a beach on December 26, the day the tsunami struck, to remember. “No matter where we all are, this is a commitment we have forever. We need to be close to the souls [of the dead]," Belón told People.

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