TSUNAMI

       Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, tsunami that hit the coasts of several countries of South and Southeast Asia in December 2004. The tsunami and its aftermath were responsible for immense destruction and loss on the rim of the Indian Ocean.

       

       On December 26, 2004, at 7:59 AM local time, an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1 struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Over the next seven hours, a tsunami—a series of immense ocean waves—triggered by the quake reached out across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal areas as far away as East Africa. Some locations reported that the waves had reached a height of 30 feet (9 metres) or more when they hit the shoreline.

       

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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With 174,500 casualties,51,500 missing,and roughly 1.5 million people displaced,the toll of human casualties from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami has no modern historical equal.To understand the distribution of the casualties,the tsunami-affected region can be segmented into three areas:the nearfield along the coasts of Sumatra,which account for approximately 70% of the total;those at intermediate distances (between 1,000 and 2,000 km,or 620 and 1240 mi) in Thailand,India,Sri Lanka,Myanmar,and the Maldives; and those in the farfield on the coasts of Africa and on islands in the western Indian Ocean,such as the Seychelles Islands.