Tsunami 2004 Facts and Figures

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This deadliest tsunami 2004 caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 250,000  people in a single day is the most devastating tsunami in modern times, traveled 375 miles (600 km) in a mere 75 min. That’s 300 miles (480 km) per hour, leaving more than 1.7 million homeless affecting 18 countries. Tsunami is an ever-present and real threat for the these islands of the Indian Ocean due to the presence of a tectonic interactive plate. These reviews may help national, regional, and international organizations to prevent such events from occurring again in the future.

• Video: Prof: Iain Stewart explains how an earthquake triggered the deadly tsunami 2004
• Wikipaedia: Indian Ocean 2004 earthquake
• New Scientist: Facts and Figures: Asian tsunami 2004 Disaster
• Disaster watch: Tsunami 2004 facts
• National Geographic News: Tsunami 2004 in Southeast Asia

The December 2004 earthquake released about enough energy to power the United States for six months, or put another way, it generated the equivalent of a 250-megaton bomb shaking every point of the earth an inch or more. The associated shifts in the ocean floor displaced enough water to fill a tank 1.6 kilometers wide, 1.6 kilometers high and more than 11 kilometers long. The Los Angeles Times reported: “Miles beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, a massive piece of the Earth’s crust had heaved, buckled and shifted. Along a fracture zone hundreds of miles long, it moved, releasing pent-up energy equivalent to the power of more than 1,000 atomic bombs. The waters above reared up and crashed down, creating a wave that was now racing across the ocean at 500 mph…The records of history and evidence encoded in coral reefs show that tsunamis have hit the Indian Ocean seldom but with great force.” [Source: Paul Watson, Barbara Demick and Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2005]

• Video: Experts find shocking underwater evidence of the huge quake that caused the tsunami 2004
• Surviving the tsunami
• CNN: Earthquake triggers deadly Indian ocean tsunami 2004
• BBC: Asian Tsunami 2004 disaster

The risk of Indian Ocean earthquakes and tsunamis similar to the 2004 Sumatra disaster is greater than previously thought, researchers say. British and Canadian scientists said the risk in the western Indian Ocean of an earthquake-caused tsunami that could threaten the coastal areas of Pakistan, Iran, Oman, India and other countries has been underestimated. UPI science news

• Life science: Tsunami 2004 special report
• Centre for Tsunami Research NOAA
• Waves of destruction smh.com
• National Geographic New:s  The Deadliest Tsunami in History?
• USGS: Tsunamis and Earthquakes 

A number of foreigners were killed, most them people vacationing in Thailand and Sri Lanka. As of January 20, 2004 they included Germans (60 dead, 615 missing), Swedes (52 dead, 637 missing), Britons (52 dead, 464 missing), Americans (37 dead, unknown missing), Japanese (25 dead, 67 missing), Swiss (23 dead, 240 missing), Australia (23 dead, 18 missing), French (22 dead, 74 missing), Italians (20 dead, 190 missing), and people from 35 other countries. more

• Earth guide: Asian tsunami 2004
• University of Buffalo: Indian Ocean tsunami 2004 disaster
• UN: Fishermen suffered huge material toll from Asian tsunami 2004

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