Chapter 11 Exercise 26, Page 229

Exercise 26

Page 229

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

In 2004, several countries that border the Indian Ocean, including Indonesia, Thailand, India, Malaysia, and Somalia were hit by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami. As you may already know, a tsunami is a giant ocean wave.

In just a few short hours, millions of lives were changed forever. The earthquake was measured at 9.3 on the Richter scale. It was the fourth largest earthquake since 1900 and the second largest that has ever been recorded on the Richter scale.

The quake was followed by four giant waves as high as 100 feet or 30 meters. Whole villages were destroyed. Thousands of people were swept out to sea, and many others died due to lack of medical care.

In total, almost 300,000 people were killed and 1.3 million people were left homeless. Aftershocks from the earthquake continued for several days.

Tragically, the damage could have been lessened if there had been a tsunami early-warning system. Such a system already existed for the Pacific Ocean, but it didn’t reach to the Indian Ocean.

Since the tsunami disaster, governments have worked together to develop an early-warning system so that Southeast Asia will not experience such destruction again from a tsunami.