The tsunami that killed 250 thousand people

On December 26, 2004, the 9.1-magnified earthquake on the Richter scale created a tsunami that caused about 250 thousand casualties.

“Killing over 200,000 people and with damage to several tens of billions of dollars, that event stimulated the scientific community and government bodies to equip with monitoring tools and warning of the risk of tsunami”, said the chairman of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Carlo Doglion.

The tragedy of 7:59 on December 26, 2004, was the third most powerful in the last 60 years, following the earthquake in Chile in the years of ʹ60 (magnitude 9.5) and the Alaska earthquake in 1964 (9.2).

The epicentra was located in the Indian Ocean, outside the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where the sea rose, generating abnormal waves that traveled thousands of miles to the shores of 14 countries in three continents, including Africa.

That earthquake was a lesson from every perspective, both scientific and social, as it taught us much about the tsunami phenomenon, which was the most dramatic part of the large number of victims. Furthermore, we studied how it had happened in the past when the seismometer network was the least rare and satellite data was missing”, he says.

An earthquake that spanned 1,200 miles [1,200 km] in length, at a speed of about two miles per second, reaching a peak within 10 minutes, Doglione stressed.

The tsunamis reached altitudes that exceeded 20 feet [20 m] in some lands.

After 25 minutes, the waves reached Sumatra, two hours after Thailand.