Deadliest Tsunami: A Case Study

December 26th, 2004 marks the day a 9.1-9.3 magnitude earthquake triggered arguably the deadliest tsunami of the twenty-first century. The 1,300 km fault zone spawned a wave reaching fifty meters in height and five meters inland. Fourteen countries worldwide lost an estimated 230,000 people [Geist et al., 2015] and a devastating ten billion dollars to the colossal Indian Ocean swell. The devastation kick started efforts to create better technology and innovations so that when the next disaster struck, humanity would be prepared. What is important to know is what actually causes a tsunami to occur, specifically the one in 2004. “Seismologists believe the sudden change in the seafloor terrain is what triggers a tsunami.” [Folger, 1984], meaning that a shift in the ocean floor stimulates a massive wave or waves in the ocean. What happened in 2004 was a chain of events starting …show more content…
The toll will never have a definitive number considering the masses of humans that went missing and since have yet to be found. An overwhelming amount of lives were taken because of the tsunami. Its evaluation as the second deadliest tsunami in the history of the recorded world shows proof of that. One reason so many perished was due to the high concentration of people along the coasts where the wave was the strongest and deadliest. By pure luck it happened that the the populations were very high in areas such as Aceh. Aceh is in Indonesia, right on the northern most tip where roughly 170,000 people were killed. Residents of Aceh were ignorant to the dangers of living so close to the water especially without structures that were built for the region. Aceh suffered incredible loss in deaths as well as leaving over 500,000 people homeless. Yet biggest killer was the lack of a warning or a heads up. Lives were lost because no one had planned, prepared or put in place measures to warm or sense incoming geological disasters, such as a