A Detailed Report on the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and its Impact

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. It begins by detailing the causes, primarily the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and the resulting displacement of tectonic plates, which triggered massive and destructive waves. The report then explores the widespread impact of the tsunami, including the immense loss of life, the destruction of coastal regions, and the damage to ecosystems in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka. It highlights the specific damage to islands, villages, and infrastructure, along with the long-term effects on the affected populations. The report also discusses the immediate and long-term measures taken after the disaster, including relief efforts, financial aid, and rehabilitation programs by governments, international organizations, and NGOs. Finally, it suggests preventative measures such as pollution reduction, deforestation prevention, and preparedness strategies to mitigate the impact of similar future events, emphasizing the importance of environmental protection and disaster management.

Running head: THE TSUNAMI TERROR
THE TSUNAMI TERROR
Name of the student
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Author Note

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The tsunami that had taken place in the year 2004 was a massacre for the entire world. It
caused severe damage to the ecosystem, thousands lost their life and many lost their lifestyle. It is one
among the natural calamities that has occurred in the history of calamities. The term seismic sea wave
means a series of waves in the water bodies of the earth. The tsunami waves did not resemble the
normal current waves formed under the sea. They were massive and destructive in nature. The
wavelength for Tsunami was relatively longer and did not break at required positions. Thus, creating
huge waves that damaged the buildings and structures located near the water bodies. It consisted of
series of waves that lasting from minutes to hours. The Indian Ocean Tsunami was one of the
destructive calamities that occurred in nature. According to scientists, the tsunami was not tide as
they consisted series of waves that were destructive in nature. The discussion will detail the Indian
Ocean Tsunami that occurred in the year 2004. It will also discuss about the impacts of Tsunami, how
life were damaged, how the nature was damaged. The study will also include the measures that were
taken during that time and few recommendations that must be taken to prevent such disasters to
happen in future again.
The Indian Ocean tsunami had taken place in the year 2004, 26th of December. The epicenter
of the disaster was at the west coast of Indonesia. The mega thrust earthquake took place when the
Indian plate was hit by the Burma plate. It triggered a series of devastating Tsunami along the coastal
areas of the Indian Ocean. The calamity caused two, 80,000 deaths and made 14 countries severely
affected by the disaster. As Indonesia was the centre for this disaster, it was affected the most
followed by countries like Thailand, India and Srilanka. As per world record, this was the third largest
and powerful earthquake. It has a longer duration in comparison to the other earthquakes. It had lasted
for 8 to 10 minutes and vibrated the blue planet as much as 0.4 inches. The epidemic had expanded
until Alaska. Scientifically the epidemic is named as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.
Cause:
The cause for such a disaster was the displacement of the plates due to an earthquake. The
displacement happened as the earthquake lasted for a longer period, greater than 9. It occurred 30kom

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below the sea level and hence affected the water bodies (Griffin et al.,2013). The earthquake displaced
massive water volumes of water that resulted the Tsunami. The tsunami that occurred in the shallow
water regions forming large destructive waves that damaged the environment and led to thousands
death. according to (Brown et al., 2015) the height of the tsunami had reached 24 meters (80 ft) while
coming ashore, at some points they reached 30 meters (100ft). the stretch of the tsunami was from the
east to west region. Countries like Bangladesh were not affected much as the quake proceeded slowly
towards the north.
Damages it caused:
The Andaman and Nicobar islands had suffered a lot due to this calamity. Indonesia was the
first country that was affected. Stretching from the islands of Sumatra to regions of Aceh. The
tsunami occurred after 30 minutes of the earthquake. According to (Srivastava & Shaw,2015)
250000people died there and 37063 were missing. The damage was not limited to the death and
missing people. The incident had left 655000 people homeless and shelter less. The maximum
damage took place in the coastal regions as the destruction started from the water bodies. The incident
has destroyed the coastline, damaging the habitat and ecosystem of those particular regions. In many
regions, the towns and villages were destroyed killing thousands of human, animals. The residue that
was left after the attack was few parts of iron roofs, few mosques left in the wetlands, few substantial
structures.
The Andaman and Nicobar islands was also damaged in this massacre. It caused a severe
damage to the islands environment. The Andaman Island was less affected in comparison to the little
Andaman and Nicobar Island. They were damaged at a huge scale. In the southern region of
Andaman, the attack was extended three times the general attack. The coastlines and the low-lying
areas were damaged by flooding. in southern Andaman the attack was a four wave cycle with the
fourth cycle to be the most destructive and dangerous in nature. The impact so severe that it threw 4
oil tankers from the seashore. The worst affect was at the Katchall islands where 303 were confirmed
dead and 4354 were missing.

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At Srilanka, the tsunami arrived at the eastern coast and refracted to the southern region.
However the country is located far beyond the epicenter and hence they did not fell the shake. The
tsunami had hit the coastline of Srilanka after almost 2 hour of the quake. It is considered that tsunami
had consisted three main waves with the second wave being the strongest. A train named Sumudra
Devi was derailed and overturned by the tsunami (McGilvray & Gamburd, 2013). It took almost 1700
lives in the country and listed it as the one of the most destructive disaster in world history.
The tsunami had also affected the Southern region of Thailand and caused severe damage to
the country. The tsunami occurred to the country when it was facing high tide and thus the effect was
increased. At Phuket, the western beaches were affected (Calgaro, Dominey-Howes& Lloyd,2014).
In India, the tsunami arrived in regions like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu. The Southernmost
region was affected after two hours. The regions of Tamil Nadu were severely damaged and few areas
in Andhra Pradesh were also damaged. The villages were destroyed; the residents were swept away
from the coastline. The fishing industry was damaged, the population was damaged and the lifestyle
was affected very badly in these regions (Patton et al.,2015).
Altogether, the massacre had caused severe damage to the countries and the countrymen. The
sudden shock had drift many lives’s and made many homeless. According to (Srivastava & Shaw,
2015) 227,898 people lost their life's and many become homeless and without any shelter. The crops,
plantations, animals, aquatic life were severely damaged by this incident. The incident not only led to
death but also showed its impact for few months even after the incident happened. The victims were
left injured; there was no scope for treatments and aids that could be provided to them ( Ontowirjo,
Paris & Mano, 2013). They did not have sufficient food to live neither did they have consumable
water. The victims had lost their families and house and were living in government-sheltered regions.
The government of other countries and unaffected regions were providing necessary things to them.
The other countries had to arrange for their food and necessary requirements for living ( Seng, 2013).
It took months for these victims to rebuild their courage and homely situations. It was a restart for
them to live on earth, as they environment was completely destroyed by the calamity. Hence, they had

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to rebuild each thing required in the environment. Other countries and states to come out from this
situation and restart their lifestyles supported the victims.
Steps taken after the massacre:
The tsunami had created a relief effort raising funds from government. The governments of
the neighboring countries had sanctioned relief and rehabilitation measures for the victim countries.
The World Bank and banks that are supported by the NGO’s provided initial supports to the countries.
They targeted to provide an urgent relief to the victims and a long term rehabilitation to the countries.
They intended to create an environment friendly situation and help the victims to come out of the
traumatic situation. The government of India reconstructed the damaged houses, created new
habitation in safer zones, provided sustainable lifestyle for the countrymen, restored the ecology,
provided better infrastructure and helped the victims with educational needs and psychological
trauma. MCF had taken initiative and took the victims to a new area where they were provided with
education, living motivations, help groups, protection from further damage. They committed to
provide rehabilitation to the victims and worked for the improvement of the victims. The members
meet every month to discuss about the improvement and betterment in their work to help the injured
and victim of Tsunami(Hentry et al., 2017). They have fund to provide treatment and ensure the
welfare of these innocent lives. The neighboring countries provided food and consumable water to the
affected areas by helicopter. The countries were raising funds for the victims and moved 50000 tons
of food to the affected areas. They used helicopter and planes to reach the victims. There were groups
formed to provide medical help to the victims. The countries like Japan, America, Kuwait provided
money whereas the countries like Pakistan and China provided medical teams, rescue teams along
with dogs. All the nations from worldwide had helped the countries that were affected by the disaster.
It took few months for the countries to recover their trauma and come back to normal lifestyle.
The primary cause of this disaster was environmental impact that caused the earth quake with
a extended effect of the destructive calamity Tsunami. the incident could have been prevented if the
ratio of pollution and damage to nature was limited since the early days (Løvholt et al., 2014). As the

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people are least concerned about the welfare of society, they do not tend to protect the society.
Unfortunately, the humans residing in the society cause the damage to society. The primary reason for
the earthquake was the shifting of the plates (Hutchison, 2014). The pates tend to move due to the
intense heat of the earth. The heating is natural in nature, however, the rate of heat has been increased
b the human activities that has resulted to such an outcome.
The primary steps that can be taken to prevent these calamities are:
 reduction of pollution
 using methods to save the greenery
 prevention of deforestation
 reducing CFC eliminating products
 reducing pollution emitting machines
 use technologies that support cooling of the earth
 use natural resources those are renewable
 reduce the use of nuclear weapons that increase the heat level
The people of earth to reduce such disastrous incidents to happen should follow these
measures.
Few other measures can be taken to face such calamities:
 the country can keep a stock of food grains and necessities for such mishaps
 There can be a special group or help age group in every country who will provide support to
nations or states suffering from such incidents
 The governments can equipments like helicopter, ship and airplanes that will provide support
to the countries suffering such problems.
 The country can have a weather-monitoring group who can at least find approximate
chances(Anugrah et al.,2015) for the mishaps to happen and warn the country from such
incidents.

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Thus to conclude it can be said that the primary cause for such a disaster is the
earthquake that resulted to this disaster. The reason for such quakes is the heating of the earth.
The Earth has heated due to excess use of rays, chemicals and environment hazardous
products. However, these are also natural calamities that cannot be stopped by our own
choice. Hence, few considerations has to be accepted for such calamities, along with some
measures. The measures can be protection of greenery and maintenance of ecology. The use
of heating chemicals and agents can be reduced to reduce the heat on Earth. At the same time
people should be prepared for such natural calamities happening. They can build their habitats
in higher regions to prevent such disasters to damage them at the most. They can use weather
monitoring devices to assume the chances of such disasters , they can avoid living near water
bodies that can damage the most in case of such disasters. However, these are natural
calamities that occur without any warning and it has to be accepted and overcome by everone.

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