Question: where did the december 26 2004 tsunami hit

title: 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
text: Moreover , in Malacca located on the island of Car Nicobar , According to local people , three pulses of tsunami waves attacked the area three times . The first wave that came 5 minutes after the earthquake was preceded by recession of the seawater up to 600 -- 700 m ( 1969 -- 2297 ft ) , exposing the seabed . The second and third waves came with a 10 minutes interval after the first and second waves respectively . The third wave was the strongest , with a maximum tsunami wave height of 11 m ( 36 ft ) and was accompanied by a loud noise . The landward flow direction measured from bent rods was towards S800 W and the back flow was towards east direction . The inundation limit is 1.125 m ( 0.41 ft ) from the sea water / land contact ( on the date of measurement ) towards west and restricted up to 10 m . Furthermore , waves nearly 3 stories high devastated the Indian Air Force base , located just south of Malacca . The tsunami waves attacked the area three times with a maximum tsunami wave height of 11 m ( 36 ft ) . Inundation limit was found to be up to 1.25 km ( 4101 ft ) inland . The impact of the waves was so severe that four Oil tankers of IOC were thrown almost 800 m ( 2624 ft ) from the seashore near Malacca to Air force colony main gate . In Chuckchucha and Lapati , the tsunami arrived in a three wave cycle with a maximum tsunami wave height of 12 m ( 39 ft ) .