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.

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.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard all visited Aceh to see the disaster aftermath.

### 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
- Guardian Unlimited - Special Report: Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster
- New York Times
- Sydney Morning Herald - Waves of Devastation

### 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.

## Infobox (earthquake)

- **image**: US Navy 050102-N-9593M-040 A village near the coast of Sumatra lays in ruin after the Tsunami that struck South East Asia.jpg
- **caption**: Village near the coast of Sumatra
- **isc-event**: 7453151
- **anss-url**: official20041226005853450_30
- **timestamp**: 2004-12-26 00:58:53
- **pushpin map**: Indian Ocean#Southeast Asia#Earth
- **damage**: USD, US$15 billion
- **type**: Megathrust earthquake, Megathrust
- **magnitude**: 9.1–9.3
- **affected**: Countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Indian Ocean coastline areas
- **casualties**: 227,898 dead
- **duration**: 10 minutes
- **fault**: Sunda Megathrust