Asia Remembers Deadly 2004 Tsunami
The devastating December 26 tsunami destroyed entire coastal communities, decimated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches, sweeping away everyone and everything in its path.
Brief memorials were held in mosques throughout the region, beside mass graves, and at seaside resorts and communities on the rim of the Indian Ocean.
The tsunami was triggered by an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 that struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Over the next seven hours, a wall of
water reached out across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal areas as far away as East Africa.
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Some locations reported that the waves had reached a height of nine meters or more when they hit the shoreline.
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and Thailand sustained massive damage. Indonesian officials estimated that the death toll there alone ultimately exceeded 200,000, particularly in northern Sumatra's Aceh province. The official death toll is considerably lower.
Tens of thousands were reported dead or missing in Sri Lanka and India, a large number of them from the Indian Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory. The low-lying island country of Maldives reported more than a hundred casualties and immense economic damage. Several thousand non-Asian tourists vacationing in the region also were reported dead or missing.
The lack of food, clean water and medical treatment, combined with the enormous task faced by relief workers trying to get supplies into some remote areas where roads had been destroyed or where civil war raged, extended the list of casualties.
Long-term environmental damage was severe as well, with villages, tourist resorts, farmland and fishing grounds demolished or inundated with debris, bodies and plant-killing salt water.
Posted by Oare?
on 9:17 AM. Filed under