The Next Generation Needs to Know About the 2004 Tsunami, Says Survivor (Exclusive)

• Soffie Modin, who was trapped in a house for hours after being swept away by the 2004 tsunami, says younger generations don’t know much about the historic disaster
• “Maybe it’s hard (for them) to understand that it wasn’t that easy,” she tells PEOPLE
• In the aftermath of the tragedy, Modin says she was left wrapped with wire around her body and pinned to boards for hours before she was finally rescued.

Soffie Modin cannot forget the horrors she endured after surviving the tsunami of December 26, 2004 but says fewer young people are aware of the world-changing disaster.

“Maybe it’s hard (for the younger generation) to understand that it wasn’t that easy,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

Modin, 45, was on holiday in Thailand’s Phi Phi Islands with her then-fiancé Magnus, his brother and another friend when the group wiped out by the tsunami.

“All we heard was a noise, a very loud noise,” she explains. “No people shouting, nothing like that, just like a train coming.”

Modin, who has been featured in National Geographic’s Tsunami: Race against time (now streaming 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 sitting in a washing machine.

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

“I had nerve damage in my leg because it felt like a big woody thing was pressing into my stomach,” she adds. “So at that point I thought I was going to lose my leg completely.”

For more about life two decades after the 2004 tsunami, buy the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

The Swedish resident also remembers hearing people screaming for help. She realized, “They’re not getting any help… They’re dying around me.”

Ultimately, Modin was rescued and reunited with Magnus, but his brother was killed. It took her eight months in hospital and home care to recover. But eventually she realized she had to embrace her “second chance” at life – “thankful to be alive.”

Although Modin and Magnus are no longer married, the two remain in touch with the fact that the tsunami is the ‘only thing’ they can still share. She also thinks it has become “kind of therapeutic” to talk about.

With more than 500 Swedes killed by the tsunami – one of the worst disasters the country has ever suffered – says the mother of two, who has been remarried for 15 years: “Everyone knows someone who was involved in the tsunami, or knows someone who was there.”

But she decided to revisit the ordeal because there is a younger generation who don’t know much about the terror that unfolded that day. “It’s kind of nice to lift that lid again,” she adds.