2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

Minhae Park

Grade 8

Science

What is a tsunami?A tsunami is a wave, or series of waves, that can be hundreds of miles long and can reach up to heights of 10.5 m. They travel as fast or faster than a commercial plate.

Tsunamis are mostly caused by underwater earthquakes, but are also known to have been caused by volcanoes, landslides, and any other sudden movement that has enough force to move a lot of water at once. A heavier plate slips under the lighter one, this is called a subduction. The lighter one can snap up, which causes tons of rock shooting up. The energy is transferred into the water. The energy pushes the water upward, and this is the birth of the tsunami.

Tsunamis move faster in deeper water; it moves at speeds of hundreds of miles a hour, and is more or less a meter until it gets close to the shore. When it does the speed decreases, but the height of the wave increases. A normal tsunami will slow down to 50 kph, and the wave will reach up to 30 meters.

2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

The TsunamiThe tsunami was a result of the Indian Plate sliding under the Burma Plate. This procedure has been going on over over a millennia, and on December 26, 2004 the result came out.

A rupture about 10 meters horizontally and several yards vertically. This doesn’t sound like much, but trillions of tons of rock were moved through this rupture. All this energy went into the water, and thus created a tsunami.

The epicenter was under the Indian Ocean, near the west coast of Sumatra. The earthquake measured 9.0 on the Richard Scale and was followed by aftershocks from 6.3 to 7.0.

The waves of the tsunami went up to 30 meters, at speeds of 480 kilometers per hour. The wave had enough power to travel 5000 kilometers to Africa, and had enough force to kill people and destroy property. In total, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami slammed into 11 Indian Ocean countries, and was one of the deadliest natural disasters ever in recorded history.

The ImpactsAfter the tsunami hit, the results it left behind were drastic.

An estimated death of 187,000 with 43,000 missing, many hundred of thousand people were injured, and a huge number of people were homeless in 11 countries. All surviving people were suffering, not only physically but also mentally. Loss of their family, and homes was enough to give grief to the survivors.

The province of Aceh on Sumatra, Indonesia was one of the most affected areas because of the tsunami. More than 130,000 people died and 36,786 people were still missing after a year the tsunami struck. More than 500,000 people lost their homes, and at least 654 villages were damaged/destroyed. Over 800 kilometers of the Aceh’s coast was affected.

Thousands of corpses started rotting in the heat. With no food, water, and medicine, the risk of epidemic and famine were high.

Bibliography•http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1227_041226_tsunami.html October 14, 2010•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_tsunami October 14, 2010•http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/tsunami.htm October 17, 2010•http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4136289.stm October 17, 2010•http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/2258 November 2, 2010