2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami And Earthquake

California’s unique geography as a state makes it a very appealing place to call home. From the odd east to west transverse San Gabriel mountain ranges of the Los Angeles Basin, to the bumpy coastal ranges of the Bay Area, any person can find a compatible topographic terrain to their liking. California may seem to be the perfect place to live with its ideal climate and extensive geographic features. However, due to California’s location over the shifting continental plates, coupled with its enormous and also multiple faults, at any time this great state can fall victim to a seismic disaster. After examining evidence from both Rong-Gong Lin’s II Los Angeles Times article of April 18, 2016 and the NOVA videos Killer Quake ( 2006), Earthquake (2007), as well as Geologic Journey II – Episode 3 (The Pacific Rim: Americas) – Part 3 (San Francisco) and The Great San Francisco Earthquake (American Experience ~ 2005), one can take a comparative account of the three major earthquakes of California’s past. Although each earthquake was very devastating on is own; the Great Quake 0f 1906, the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, and the NorthRidge quake of 1994 each amounted to an extensive forfeiture of property and life. Each of these earthquakes created much suffering and loss. It is imperative for each citizen of this great state to understand the damage that a California quake can actually do and be prepared; for the threat of one always looms.

Throughout this unit, the Science in Practice class has been learning about natural disasters and the impact it has on humans and environment. The natural disaster that will be discussed in this report is the Boxing Day Tsunami, which occurred on the 26th of December, 2004. The tsunami took place in the Indian Ocean. Due to, two tectonics plates, the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate colliding, causing an underwater earthquake. Due to this awful disaster, people were killed, injured, diagnosed with diseases, homes and businesses were destroyed, the environment damaged.

on the effects and what might happen to make the audience be more interested and want

In the last decade alone, there have been a number of natural disasters that have caused substantial physical damage and great emotional distress to the people who were affected. The aftermath of a natural disaster presents many concerns; communities become displaced, health risks and complications occur, food scarcity becomes a result of lost crops, and emotional aftershocks become apparent. Some Haitian’s have yet to recover from the earthquake they experienced in 2010. (Davis, 2015) “According to FEMA, the total damage for hurricane Katrina is estimated at $108 billion.” (CNN News, 2015), and 86,000 lives were taken in the earthquake of Pakistan in 2005 (EERI, 2006). In 2008, communities of Sichuan, China, endured a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that collapsed several buildings, killing over 87,000 people. Buildings had very poor infrastructures, which caused the destruction of many local schools. This contributed to the deaths of thousands of school aged children (BBC News, 2013). However, the Boxing Day tsunami was one of the largest and most destructive natural disasters of

In the article, ¨Indian Ocean Tsunami; Then and Now¨ by Lucy Rodgers and Gerry Fletcher the text says, ¨About 228,000 people were killed as a result of the 9.1 magnitude quake and the giant waves that slammed into coastlines.¨ Anything can happen at any time, and everybody living in that area were not expecting a tsunami to hit out of nowhere, causing 228,000 of them to get killed. On page 48, the text says, ¨For as far as Ruslan could see, Meulaboh had become a lake, clogged with floating debris.¨ Everything in the city was basically gone, all because nobody saw anything coming and nobody was prepared. Finally, on page 78, the text says, ¨A man stared at him with wide, and bulging eyes. Unblinking eyes, rigid with death. Around him were several more corpses, caught in the brush like debris.¨ Thousands people got killed and hurt, because a tsunami hit out of

The 9.0 magnitude Indian Ocean earthquake was caused by subduction under the Indian Ocean. Earthquakes are usually caused by convection currents leading to subduction/convergent currents. Convection currents is caused by magma rising from the deepest part of the earth, then slowly cooling, sinking again then re-heating, then rising upwards basically repeating the rising and cooling then re-heating cycle over and over again. The plates are separated from each other and they move apart, the plates then obviously hit another plate right next to it causing subduction. This earthquake was caused on the Oceanic crust, in the Indian Ocean, creating tsunamis that caused disasters and thousands of life loss throughout the Indian Ocean basin. The

B. 2004 Sumatra Andaman Earthquake (Indian Ocean Earthquake), 1964 Alaska Earthquake (Good Friday Earthquake), 1960 Great Children Earthquake

I chose to select what I consider Black Swan events. According to Masys (2012), black swan represents the unpredictable and is also described as an outlier. The black swan types of events are caused extreme impact known as natural disasters. The events are the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis, and 2004 Indonesia Earthquake/Tsunami. The Weather Channel (2013) states on January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti’s capital and surrounding cities, and 314,000 people were killed. During early May 2008, Cyclone Nargis caused a catastrophic destruction killing at least 138,000 individuals (The Weather Channel, 2013). Nargis is the deadliest named cyclone in the North Indian Ocean Basin and the second deadliest named cyclone after Typhoon Nina in 1975. The Weather Channel (2013) also states 2004 Indonesia Earthquake/Tsunami had a magnitude of 9.2, killing over 230,000 people and injured half a million. These are some of the events in history that I believe were unpredictable.

I have been a storm chaser for nearly thirty years. Hurricanes and Tsunamis have always greatly interested me because the force behind the water. When I lived in California, I would go out on the ocean with friends as they dove for scallops. What was most interesting to me, as I sat lookout on the boat, is how NOAA would position buoys to gather many types of data for the ocean’s behaviors. Years later one of the most interesting pieces of data came from an area in Fort Myers, Florida. The hurricane that hit there, was much like a Tsunamis where the Gulf waters literally appeared to dry up and you could see the ocean floor. As the waters rushed back in as a wave, canal homes were hit harder with a wave than they were with high winds. Typically,

The Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami was a disaster considering, Japan had a magnitude 9 earthquake which then caused a massive tsunami. The earthquake was so powerful that it affected people from Norway to Antarctica. The tsunami waves surged to a towering one hundred and twenty eight feet tall . The tsunami went six miles inland from shore to the city. The tsunami went so far inland that is causing one of the nuclear plants to have a cooling meltdown, which then caused a level-7 meltdown. 15,894 people died in this natural disaster and there are still 2,500 people still missing. People still now in 2017 have no homes and are living in hotels and part time homes.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission fund U.S. East coast tsunami hazard assessment, while the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conduct this assessment. Moreover, the evaluation includes distinguishing submarine avalanches along the submerged continental margin as the primary potential source of dangerous tsunamis to this coast. The 1929 Grand Banks submarine landslide produced a monstrous tsunami (3-8 meters high) that killed 28 people along the scantily populated Newfoundland coast. This catastrophic event shows the seriousness of this hazard. Besides, many maps showed insufficient detail for parts of this region. However, scientists produced a quantitative assessment of tsunami hazard involving several analysts conducting a 15-day survey

“When people ask me how it felt, I just say ‘imagine being thrown into a washing machine and someone pressing on for 10-15 minutes” (Crashing Down: A Tsunami Survivor Tells His Story), says Victor Israelsson, a survivor of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 was a massive disaster in size, affects, and casualties.

The Indian Ocean Tsunami, also known as the Sumatran-Andaman Earthquake, occurred on December 26, 2004 at 7:51 AM. The epicenter of this earthquake was located off of the West Coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake caused immense destruction and loss of life throughout the Indian Ocean basin within several hours of its occurrence. The Indian Ocean Tsunami was the highest magnitude event in the region in over forty years. About 230,000 people were reported dead with many more still missing, which is the fourth largest reported death toll for any natural disaster in history.

In the U.S. alone, the average annual cost to repair damage caused by earthquakes is $4.4 billion USD. The worldwide figure is much larger than this but unquantifiable due to poorer countries unable to accurately determine the amount of damage that occurred. Year after year the cost of damages barely fluctuates from these ridiculously high figures and money must be pumped into repairing the damage done. Although a lot is being learnt about earthquakes and the fact that humans are now normally able to be alerted in time to evacuate the area the earthquake will affect, there have been no breakthroughs into reducing the amount of damage earthquakes cause to buildings and infrastructures.

Enormous forces that had been building up deep within the earth for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years were suddenly released on December 26, 2004, unleashing the energy of 475,000 kilotons of TNT or 23,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. This event would come to be known as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and it would result in a death toll of 283,000, the deadliest tsunami in history. This report examines information surrounding how nature generates such a deadly phenomenon and its aftermath.