Tsunami 2004

Andrew Fish 2004 Tsunami The Tsunami A major underwater earthquake took place on December 26, 2004 off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. This was a very widespread disastrous event that killed over 225,000 people amongst eleven different nations. The major countries that were most effected by one of the most deadly natural disasters in recent history are Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Putting the severity of this tsunami into perspective, the seismograph tool, which measures the intensity of these tsunamis, rated this occurance a 9.1, the second strongest ever recorded. The strongest was a 9.3, which in retrospect is fairly close to the 9.1 that occurred in 2004. According to historical research, serious earthquakes occur once per year. One strange aspect of this specific earthquake is that is occurred exactly one year, to the day, of another major earthquake that occurred one year previous, December 26, 2003. How it was caused The Tsunami was caused by a earthquake that took place in the Indian Ocean near the northern coast of the island of Sumatra. It occurred more than 19 miles below sea level was the result of the India Tectonic Plate sliding beneath the Burma Tectonic Plate. Occurring over the course of multiple minutes, the force could be felt far from where the action was taking place. Countries like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Maldives could all feel force. As the tectonic plates underwent a shift, the bed of the ocean was forced to rise which displaced a massive amount of ocean water. Some sources claim that seven cubic miles of ocean water was displaced by the slip which were the ignition of the massive tsunami. As the depth of the ocean lessened, the waves became steeper, bigger, and way more powerful. By the time the water was shallow, the wave reached a height of 30 meters, just few too many meters to surf. (Just kidding, I do not think anyone will ever surf a tsunami!) To put this force into perspective, Tad Murty, Vice President of the world renown Tsunami Society, estimated the force of these waves as being equivalent to almost 5megatons of TNT explosive. This is a larger level force than all explosives used during the entire World War II, a war in which two atomic bombs were dropped. An interesting thing about tsunamis is the time it takes to reach a coastline. For example, Sri Lanka and Sumatra were hit almost immediately, within 1 hour of the Earthquake itself. Other countries, like Somalia for example was hit more than seven hours after the earthquake. Just because it takes longer for the tsunami wave to travel a certain distance, that does not necessarily mean that the force, pressure, and size of the waves is greatly reduced. Why was it such a surprise? Unfortunately, prior to this horrific natural disaster, there were no tsunami warnings set in place within the Indian Ocean. This is mainly because tsunamis are very hard to track in

deep water because their size and mangnitude does not grow huge until it reaches much more shallow water levels. It is also difficult because calculating where will effected is a great challenge. The force of a tsunami can travel hundreds of thousands of miles, this implies great efforts to let everyone who may be effected by a tsunami to make aware of the issue. However, an interesting characteristic of a tsunami is how the ocean tides recedes from the coast and children and local people often trek into the shallow waters in awe and to catch the stranded fish that did not make it back with the shoreline. Unfortunately, part of the reason it was such a major catastrophic event is because the warnings signs are so unpredictable. In reality, it was about 4 major waves that did the most damage. Each wave occurred 30 minutes apart from each other, with the third wave being by far the most powerful wave. The Damage According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the death toll from this Tsunami was about 229,866 people. If categorized as a tsunami instead of an earthquake, this is characterized as the most deadly tsunami ever in history. Since many of the places where the Tsunami was hit are stricken by poverty, there are often many children in these areas. This is why approximately one third of all the casualties are classified as children. Because of their small size and lack of strength, fighting the rushing waters and monstrous waves was extremely difficult for children. A surprising statistic is that about 10,000 tourists are included in the casualty count. The majority of these people come from Europe. Some Outcomes Because the tsunami was the worst ever recorded in history, there was much humanitarian aid given from the developed world to all the affect areas. There were major negative impacts on sorts of infrastructure components including food and water shortages, and economic infrastructure damage. Fortunately, as they should, many nations throughout the globe donated large portions of funding to the affected areas. Countries including Australia, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the U.S. donated 820, 660, 500 343, and 350 million U.S. dollars respectively.