2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, also called the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake (known by the scientific community), was a great underwater earthquake. It happened at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) December 26, 2004.

• 2004 Indian Ocean
• earthquake and tsunami

Village near the coast of Sumatra
Date	{{{date}}}
Duration	10 minutes
Magnitude	9.1–9.3 Mw
Depth	30 km (19 mi)
Epicenter location	3.316°N 95.854°E / 3.316; 95.854
Type	Megathrust
Countries or regions affected	{{{countries affected}}}
Total damage	US$15 billion
Max. intensity	IX (Violent)
Tsunami	; max. 51 m (167 ft)
Casualties	227,898 dead

The path of the tsunami, or the wave caused by an earthquake

The epicenter of the earthquake was off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. At first, the earthquake was measured as a 9.0 on the Richter scale. It was the longest ever recorded ocean earthquake. It lasted between 500 (8.3 minutes) and 600 (10 minutes) seconds. It was so powerful that it caused the entire Earth to vibrate. It started other earthquakes as far away as Iceland.

The Asian tsunami

The large movement of earth under the water caused a very large and powerful tsunami. The tsunami was called the Asian tsunami, or the Boxing Day tsunami in Australia, Canada, England, and South Africa because it happened on the 26th of December 2004 (Boxing Day). It spread all over the Indian Ocean. The tsunami caused heavy damage to countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. It also devastated the eastern coast of India, such as the states of Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

Waves as high as 30m (100ft) killed many people and damaged or destroyed a lot of buildings and other property. Over 225,000 people died or were not found after the tsunami. The wave did damage in East Africa as far away as South Africa (8000km/ 5000mi) where as many as 8 people died because of high water caused by the wave. Because of how much damage was caused and the number of people the earthquake affected, over $7 billion (USD) was donated to help rebuild the areas damaged. This was extremely helpful in rebuilding their respective economies.

2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake And Tsunami Media

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  USGS Shakemap for the event

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  Epicentre and associated aftershocks

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  Initial earthquake and aftershocks measuring greater than 4.0 M_w  from 26 December 2004 to 10 January 2005

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  Aftershocks of 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

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  Tsunami washing ashore in Ao Nang, Thailand

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  Vertical-component ground motions recorded by the Global Seismographic Network and displayed by the IRIS Consortium

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  Seismic moment release of the largest earthquakes from 1906 to 2005

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  The tsunami's propagation took 5 hours to reach Western Australia, 7 hours to reach the Arabian Peninsula, and did not reach the South African coast until nearly 11 hours after the earthquake

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  Average height of the waves

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  Maximum recession of tsunami waters at Kata Noi Beach at 10:25 a.m., prior to the third—and strongest—tsunami wave

• Tsunami wave field in the Bay of Bengal an hour after the earthquake

News collections

• BBC News - In-Depth Report: Tsunami Disaster
• Channel News Asia - One Year On, Memorial & Updates to the Asian Tsunami Disaster
• CNN - Tsunami, One Year After Archived 2008-09-24 at the Wayback Machine
• Guardian Unlimited - Special Report: Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster
• New York Times
• Sydney Morning Herald - Waves of Devastation Archived 2008-10-12 at the Wayback Machine

Photos and video

• Yahoo! Slideshows — Asian Tsunami Disaster
• Satellite images of tsunami-affected areas (National University of Singapore)
• Tsunamis.com - 2004 Asian Tsunami Pictures
• After the Tsunami Danish writer and photographer Thorsten Overgaard's documentary on the relief work after the December 26, 2004 tsunami.