Remembering the December 25, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

[CatWoman]

A powerful undersea earthquake that struck off the coast of Sumatra island, Indonesia, set off the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, also known as the Christmas or Boxing Day tsunami, on Sunday morning, Dec. 26, 2004. The magnitude 9.1 quake ruptured a 900-mile stretch of fault line where the Indian and Australian tectonic plates meet. It was a powerful megathrust quake, occurring where a heavy ocean plate slips under a lighter continental plate.

The quake caused the ocean floor to suddenly rise by as much as 40 meters, triggering a massive tsunami. Within 20 minutes of the earthquake, the first of several 100-foot waves hit the shoreline of Banda Aceh, killing more than 100,000 people and pounding the city into rubble. Then, in succession, tsunami waves rolled over coastlines in Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka, killing tens of thousands more. Eight hours later and 5,000 miles from its Asian epicenter, the tsunami claimed its final casualties on the coast of South Africa. In all, nearly 230,000 people were killed, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history.

HBO is running a very sad and chilling miniseries entitled Tsunami: The Aftermath. It details bodies hurriedly burned without identification because of the sheer volume of dead and no where to store them. It also details how local families that had fished and lived for generations along the shore lost their property after the Thai government confiscated it and sold it to hotel developers.

Really sad and a damn shame.

[dhol82]

1. I totally remember this because we were on a cruise ship at the same time.

Scary.
Ineffably sad for all those affected.

[dweller]

2. ...

it may be the sign of things to come as our planet dies around us ☹️
and as important as the coming election season is, there is no hindsight to the inevitable conclusion of climate crisis in our future ..

i stand at the crux of doom personally, and weep for the demise of life locally ...

we are screwn... 😞
i hope ... is most as i can

✌🏼

[CatWoman]

5. according to the HBO miniseries, a Thai government official predicted a tsunami hitting the region

in a report written about 10 years prior.

The official was ridiculed and demoted, and the report buried.

All in the name of profits from tourism.

Also, in those days (2004) there was no emergency system in place, which accounts for the extremely high death toll.


I don't know if one has been put in place now, but there's talk about establishing one.

[grantcart]

7. He did predict it but his reasoning wasn't very scientific

Smith Dharmasaroja (Thai: สมิทธ ธรรมสโรช; RTGS: Samit Thammasarot; 6 November 1937) is a Thai government official. In 1998, while serving as a meteorologist, he predicted that an earthquake and tsunami "is going to occur for sure."[1][2] He advocated tsunami warning systems, but was not taken seriously. After the tsunami of December 2004, which killed over 200,000 people, he was recalled from retirement and charged with development of Thai and regional warning systems.[citation needed]

As chief of the National Disaster Warning Centre in Thailand, Dharmasaroja publicly stated that a solar eclipse could trigger natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis in Thailand, depending on "the time that the sun unleashed its energy."[3]

I am guessing that the HBO special left out that he was predicting it because of a 'solar eclipse'.

Thailand had no record of a Tsunami and virtually no record of earthquakes. I only heard of a small one in the 20 years I lived there, a 3.4 or something that created no damage.

It didn't occur to the Thais that the real threat would come from the ring of earthquakes centered in Indonesia.

Thailand does have a tsunami warning system in place but needs to work on maintenance.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-tsunami/up-to-80-percent-of-thailands-tsunami-warning-system-needs-maintenance-idUSKBN1AGOHM

There are greater threats to visitors among the foreign criminal class that now operates in Thai resorts.

[CatWoman]

9. correct; HBO made no mention of an eclipse

[Karadeniz]

3. Dang...I'd forgotten the date...mindboggling tragedy.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. I saw what the Thai government did and it reminded me of

Disaster Capitalism, which says that you should never let a good disaster go to waste.

[grantcart]

6. My mother in law had just passed away in Chieng Rai

My wife had gone to Mae Sai and was just opening a week long traditional party for all the villagers and everything was understandably overshadowed by the terrible news.

A friend of ours was caught at ground zero with his wife and son. They later moved to San Diego and we helped raise their son who only survived by grabbing a hold of a tree and spending several hours in it before being rescued.

[CatWoman]

8. can you freaking imagine???

it sends chills thru my body -- waves so high they sweep you up in a tree

also, people were so fascinated by the ocean receding and ran into the ocean bed to look. when the ocean came roaring back they were the initial casualties.

[malaise]

10. I will never forget that disaster

Still can't process the devastation

[locks]

11. Fukushima

is still a terrible threat. See article Dec. 23 in NY Times.