What Happened?
Just before eight o’clock in the morning on the 26th December
2004, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit in the Indian Ocean. It hit plates between Australia and
Indonesia. The tsunami affected a dozen nations in the region, with Indonesia
the worst affected.
The rupture of the earthquake started beneath the epicentre, at the hypocentre, and travelled North along the fault at 2km/second as a tsunami. The entire rupture went for 10 minutes.
By 10 am, 5 metre high waves had reached the shore on the west coast of Thailand. About 5 thousand locals and tourists died from countries all around the world. Some people were even washed out to sea and drowned. Others were crushed by the force of the water, or by debris carried in the waves.
In Aceh, in the north of Indonesia, more than 130 000 people were killed and almost forty thousand were missing. Houses, roads, bridges and all utilities – including power and water were wiped out. The United Nations claimed almost half a million people were cast out of their homes in the Sumatra region..alone.
The international community immediately came to the 14 countries’ aid even the military came in to help. It was a long and slow process because most of the infrastructure had to be rebuilt from nothing.
This video shows what happened:
The rupture of the earthquake started beneath the epicentre, at the hypocentre, and travelled North along the fault at 2km/second as a tsunami. The entire rupture went for 10 minutes.
By 10 am, 5 metre high waves had reached the shore on the west coast of Thailand. About 5 thousand locals and tourists died from countries all around the world. Some people were even washed out to sea and drowned. Others were crushed by the force of the water, or by debris carried in the waves.
In Aceh, in the north of Indonesia, more than 130 000 people were killed and almost forty thousand were missing. Houses, roads, bridges and all utilities – including power and water were wiped out. The United Nations claimed almost half a million people were cast out of their homes in the Sumatra region..alone.
The international community immediately came to the 14 countries’ aid even the military came in to help. It was a long and slow process because most of the infrastructure had to be rebuilt from nothing.
This video shows what happened: