A woman who grew up in Hope died Sunday when the earthquake-driven tsunami washed across the beach in Sri Lanka where she and her fiance were vacationing.

The disaster is estimated to have killed more than 77,000 people in parts of Asia and Africa.

Among them was Kelly Ann Hillgrove, 35, of Boulder, Colo.

She was born in Rockland and reared in South Hope, the daughter of Robert and Linda Hillgrove.

The family moved to Colorado when Kelly was in her teens, said family member Cindy Anderson of Rockland. Robert and Linda returned to Hope in recent years.

“Kelly and her brother stayed out in Boulder,” Anderson said.

About a week before the disaster, Hillgrove traveled from Colorado to Paris, where her fiance, Nasser Zouaoui, lives. The couple continued on to a beachfront resort in Sri Lanka.

“They went to Sri Lanka for Christmas,” Anderson said.

Hillgrove was a frequent world traveler, she said. “She had two or three full passports,” Anderson said.

The couple were eating breakfast in a cabana on the beach at the resort on the southern shore of Sri Lanka when the wave swept across the shore.

“The water came and they started running,” she said, “and they were holding hands, but the force of the water knocked them apart.”

Zouaoui survived the wave’s onslaught and searched for Hillgrove for two hours before finding her body in 5 feet of water, a young child in her arms, “which would have been just like Kelly, dying while trying to save someone else,” Anderson said.

Hillgrove suffered a head injury, Zouaoui reported.

Anderson described Hillgrove, a second cousin, as a humanitarian.

She had worked for the past 15 years as a cosmetologist at Salon Salon in Boulder.

While working full time, she attended the University of Colorado, pursuing a degree in ethnic studies, Anderson said.

Fluent in Spanish, Hillgrove spent time teaching English in South America. She did volunteer work for Boulder County’s AIDS project, the Navajo Nation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Friends and colleagues quoted in Boulder newspapers described Hillgrove as an activist who worked on social justice issues. Her travels took her to Madagascar and Algeria in Africa and to Central and South America.

“She was full of life,” Anderson said. “She was a bright, shining star.”

Hillgrove’s body is in a morgue in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The family is trying to raise the thousands of dollars it is expected to cost to bring the body home, Anderson said. A fund has been set up at Camden National Bank in Rockland under Hillgrove’s name to accept donations.