After Being Buried for Hours in 2004 Tsunami, Survivor Says Next Generation Needs to Know What Happened (Exclusive)

Soffie Modin can't forget the horrors she endured after she survived the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami but says fewer young people know about the world-changing disaster.

"Maybe it's hard for the younger generation to understand that it wasn't so easy," she tells PEOPLE in this week's issue.

Modin, 45, was on vacation on Phi Phi Islands in Thailand with her then-fiancé Magnus, his brother and another friend when the group was swept away by the tsunami.

"We only heard a sound, like a really loud sound," she explains. "No people screaming, nothing like that, just like a train was coming."

Modin, who is featured in National Geographic’s Tsunami: Race Against Time (streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu), says the group was ultimately split up amid the chaos. She describes "tumbling around and not being able to breathe," likening it to being inside a washing machine.

Over the next several hours, Modin was alone inside a house, face down on her stomach with wire wrapped around her body and pinned by planks.

"I had nerve damage in my leg because it was like a big woody thing was pressuring into my stomach," she adds. "So down there at that moment, I thought I would lose my leg totally."

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ife 20 years after the 2004 tsunami, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

The Swedish native also recalls hearing people crying out for help. She realized, "They're not getting any help ... They are dying around me."

Eventually, Modin was rescued and reunited with Magnus — but his brother was killed. It took her eight months in the hospital and home care to recover. But she ultimately realized she needed to embrace her "second chance" in life — "grateful to be alive."

While Modin and Magnus are no longer married, the two continue to keep in touch with the tsunami being the "one thing" they can still share. She also finds it has become "kind of therapeutic" to talk about.

With over 500 Swedes killed by the tsunami — among the worst disasters the country ever endured — the mother of two, who has been remarried for 15 years, says "Everybody knows someone who's connected to the tsunami or knows someone who was there."

But she decided to revisit the ordeal because there's a younger generation that doesn't know much about the terror that unfolded that day. "It's a little bit nice to just lift that lid again," she adds.

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