A 41-year-old surfer from Kent survived the Indian Ocean tsunami because he decided to take a breakfast break just before it hit.

Graham Taft, from Borough Green, near Sevenoaks, was in the Sri Lankan resort of Hikkaduwa for his annual surfing holiday, where he has been going for more than a decade.

He was out on the dawn waves on Boxing Day at the precise moment that the earthquake struck hundreds of miles away, off the coast of Sumatra.

Two and a half hours later, the deadly waves had sped across the ocean and left a trail of destruction across the scenic island, killing an estimated 22,000 people there and making 1.5 million homeless.

Graham's father, Ron, first heard about the disaster when his son, who lives at the family home in Quarry Hill Road, Borough Green, called that morning to say he was safe.

He said: "He had been surfing in the morning, they get up at sunrise, and then he went to get breakfast. He was returning to the guest house right on the beach.

"When he got there everybody was running. He looked and saw the sea rushing up the beach, and turned and ran. He was lucky he wasn't surfing at the time."

Graham, a former landscape gardener who now runs a mowing company in Sevenoaks and Tonbridge, fled to higher ground and found shelter with a family in the jungle.

He has now returned to the coastal resort - where a house owned by his sister has been destroyed - to help with the aid effort.

Mr Taft said that the surfing community is like a "big family" and said he has already received calls from New Zealand, Australia, Poland, America and Canada asking about his son's situation.

But mobile phones only work intermittently and working landline telephones are hard to find, so Mr Taft has found it difficult to get news of his son.

He added: "He needs to arrange transport to Colombo because all the coast roads are damaged and there are no rail links running so he will have to go cross country.

"He won't try for a few days because there are thousands of people doing the same thing. He has decided to go back to the guest house and try to help however he can."