Introduction
On December 26, 2004, at approximately eight in the morning, there was a huge earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean. The magnitude of this earthquake was a 9.3 on the Richter scale. According to this scale, anything over a 9 results in “near-total destruction, waves moving through the earth visible with naked eye. The epicenter was off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. According to the California Institute of Technology, this earthquake ruptured the greatest fault length of 1500 kilometers. This rupture lasted about 10 minutes long. During this event, there were two tectonic plates that were stuck together (the India Plate and the Burma Plate), which broke free of one another, causing the upper plate to slide back upward, creating …show more content…
According to Szczucinski, a professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Polan, the Boxing Day Tsunami affected the coastal zone environments. There was extreme coastal erosion due to the large waves hitting shore. The salt water also had an effect by polluting the ground. He also states that the “surface waters caused significant changes in coastal zone ecosystems, where the run-up reached up to 31 meters above sea level and in some places the shoreline moved as much as 1.5 kilometers due to wave scour and subsidence” (Szczucinski, 2006). While evaluating the effects of the tsunami, it was concluded that about 23,000 hectares of land was covered by water and over 900 kilometers of shoreline was affected in Thailand. This amount of water and shoreline movement is unbelievable, but it shows how strong this tsunami …show more content…
I was only nine years old when this horrific natural event happened, and I remember that day extremely well. This tsunami took the lives of approximately 250,000 people. It damaged thousands of buildings and even changed the shape of the shoreline. The impacts of this devastating tsunami are still affecting the people who reside there. By implementing the five priorities in the Hyogo Framework for Action, people will be prepared when natural disaster strikes and hopefully the amount of devastation that occurred from this specific tsunami will not happen
On December 26, 2004, at approximately eight in the morning, there was a huge earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean. The magnitude of this earthquake was a 9.3 on the Richter scale. According to this scale, anything over a 9 results in “near-total destruction, waves moving through the earth visible with naked eye. The epicenter was off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. According to the California Institute of Technology, this earthquake ruptured the greatest fault length of 1500 kilometers. This rupture lasted about 10 minutes long. During this event, there were two tectonic plates that were stuck together (the India Plate and the Burma Plate), which broke free of one another, causing the upper plate to slide back upward, creating …show more content…
According to Szczucinski, a professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Polan, the Boxing Day Tsunami affected the coastal zone environments. There was extreme coastal erosion due to the large waves hitting shore. The salt water also had an effect by polluting the ground. He also states that the “surface waters caused significant changes in coastal zone ecosystems, where the run-up reached up to 31 meters above sea level and in some places the shoreline moved as much as 1.5 kilometers due to wave scour and subsidence” (Szczucinski, 2006). While evaluating the effects of the tsunami, it was concluded that about 23,000 hectares of land was covered by water and over 900 kilometers of shoreline was affected in Thailand. This amount of water and shoreline movement is unbelievable, but it shows how strong this tsunami …show more content…
I was only nine years old when this horrific natural event happened, and I remember that day extremely well. This tsunami took the lives of approximately 250,000 people. It damaged thousands of buildings and even changed the shape of the shoreline. The impacts of this devastating tsunami are still affecting the people who reside there. By implementing the five priorities in the Hyogo Framework for Action, people will be prepared when natural disaster strikes and hopefully the amount of devastation that occurred from this specific tsunami will not happen