Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami 2004

Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami:

Earthquake:  

The Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami of 2004 occurred due to the release of energy at the ocean-ocean convergent boundary between the Indian Plate and the Burma micro-plate, which is part of the larger Sunda Plate. The Indian plate is part of the bigger Indo-Australian plate which is broken into the Australian and Indian plates. At the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Ridge a divergent boundary is found that is causing the Somalia and Antarctica Plate to move south west and the Indian and Australian plate to move northeast. This movement means that the denser Indian plate is subducting under the Burma Microplate. Though in 2004 the tension from this movement was released at 7:59am (local time) at an approximate depth of 20 kilometres and 250 kilometres southeast of Banda Aceh. When the release occurred two faults coincided. Not only did thrust faulting occur like the faulting that occurred in 2011 at the Japanese Earthquake but strike slip faulting also occurred, this processed happened over about a minute and a half. The fault that was caused by the release occurred along an area 1200 kilometres long and is still the largest rupture to be recorded. As well the plate was able to slip 25 metres horizontally and around 4-5 metres vertically.

Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami - Tectonic Impacts by Kyle Sier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPuQe3aAi4s&feature=youtu.be

Tsunami that followed:

The displacement of water that was caused by the fault caused a vertical movement of 4-5 metres and hence displaced a huge amount of water. The Tsunami that was generated spread around the coasts of the Indian Ocean causing a devastating Tsunami. The Tsunami reached heights of potentially 30 metres in Aceh with averages from about 5-15 metres thoughout the Indian Ocean. The countries worst hit were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Somalia, Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Kenya with Indonesia experiencing the most causalities. The tsunami moved in three waves that were around 15-20 minutes apart from each other and hence water rose further as more waves hit the shores of the countries affected. The wave was able to move inland around 2 kilometres in Indonesia.

Aceh province Sumatra, Indonesian:

The Tsunami hit around 15 to 20 minutes after the earthquake and came in three waves. The wave was able to travel and hit the coast on the western sides as well as the north-eastern side and moved around the top and eastern sides of the country.

Andaman and Micobar Islands, India:

The Tsunami arrived around 40 to 50 minutes later after the earthquake and caused extensive damage with recorded heights of 10-12 metres at Malacca in Car Nicobar Island and at Hut Bay. It moved along the small string of islands as it radiated out from the epicentre.

Sri Lanka:

The southwest coast of Sri-Lanka was worst affect with the Tsunami arriving around 2 hours after the earthquake. Sri Lanka is 1700 kilometres from the epicentre and so felt no ground shake. The expected height of the Tsunami was estimated to be around 7-9 metres at its highest.

Thailand:

The coast of Thailand is 500km from the epicentre. The Tsunami hit in three main spots being Hao Lak, Phuket Island and Phi Phi Island located on the south western coast and took around two hours to reach the coast. As it reached the coast the wave measured heights of 2-6 metres in different areas.

India:

Many coastal towns were hit along the south and southwest of India with wave heights being recorded at 4-6 metres in areas.

Maldives:

The Maldives is a distance of 2500km from the epicentre but was still severely hit by the Tsunami. The waves measured 4 metres and had devastating impacts to the people of the various atolls and low lying islands leaving some areas submerged.

Other areas impacted:

Areas such as Malaysia and South Africa were also affected. The vast amount of area that was impacted caused a death toll estimated at 230,273 people with Indonesia facing around 170,000 of those casualties.

Effects of Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami:

Website of photographs of damage due to the Tsunami:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-24/boxing-day-tsunami-then-now-photos/5875900

Once again just like the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami the Earthquake had little affect. Most of the regions that were hit were not affected at all by the earthquake as they were on the other side of the Indian Ocean. In Sumatra and Thailand, the effect of the earthquake was felt but just weakened some buildings. The real effect was felt by the Tsunami that came afterwards.

Damage to property:

The Tsunami caused devastating damage to the areas worst hit. A total of 141,000 homes were destroyed which accounts for 49% of all damage. Areas in Indonesia and Thailand that were worst affected were effectively flattened. Their flat lying topography made it easy for the Tsunami to move inland and clear anything in its path as homes were usually made of wooden supports and corrugated iron and were easily destroyed. In addition, the developing nations of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India are heavily reliant on agriculture and once again there was an impact just like in Japan from saline water contaminating farm land. An estimated 1160 square kilometres of farmland was effected.

This shows the impact that the tsunami had on property and facilities: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-24/boxing-day-tsunami-then-now-photos/5875900

Damage to Services:

Roads and bridges were highly effected with hundreds of bridges being swept inland in Aceh. This made transportation through the west coast hard as the bridges were relied upon for transportation into villages. As well the roads were also severely damaged and made transportation even harder, hence many villages were only accessible by boat. In addition to this, the bridges usually contained power lines and so the destruction of the power lines cut power to the area. Though the electrical stations weren't majorly affected the distribution of power was. There were also significant losses to petrol with leaks occurring from tanks in Aceh which was most affected by the disaster.

 Financial and Social Costs:

Damage to infrastructure is believed to be at a value of 9.9 billion dollars. In addition to this, after the disaster around 20 million dollars was invested into the building of an Indian Ocean Warning system so that next time warnings of the Tsunami could be sent out. Aid relief was estimated to be around 14 billion which was one of the biggest aid budgets ever received and helped the developing nations rebuild from the destruction that the Tsunami caused. In addition to the financial costs over, 5 million people are believed to have lost homes and access to food and water and 1 million are believed to have lost their livelihood. This is because the water destroyed fertile soil because of the waters salinity as well many fishing vessels were destroyed.

Amount of Death and Injury:

The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami was the worst tsunami in history with just over 230,000 people killed with 170,000 from Indonesia. In addition to the 230,000 affected by the Tsunami it is believed that as many as 150,000 people were also killed by water borne disease caused by the stagnant water left by the tsunami.

Below is a table listing impacts of death, injury and displacement:

Country Effected	Deaths	Injured	Displaced
Indonesia	167,799	n/a	500,000+
Sri Lanka	35,322	21,411	516,150
India	18,045	n/a	647,599
Thailand	8,212	8,457	7,000
Somalia	289	n/a	5,000
Myanmar (Burma)	400–600	45	3,200
Maldives	108	n/a	15,000+
Malaysia	75	299	5,000+
Tanzania	13	n/a	n/a
Seychelles	3	57	200
Bangladesh	2	n/a	n/a
South Africa	2	n/a	n/a
Yemen	2	n/a	n/a
Kenya	1	2	n/a
Madagascar	n/a	n/a	1,000+
Total	230,273	125,000	1.74 million