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Boxing Day Tsunami Research Paper

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1. Introduction

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a natural disaster is “A natural event such as a flood, earthquake, volcano or hurricane that causes great damage or loss of life”.

The Boxing Day Earthquake/Tsunami of December 2004, is ranked number 8 in the worst natural disasters list by death toll and number 2 in the worst Tsunami’s list by death toll. The Boxing Day disaster is also known as the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and the resulting tsunamis from the earthquake claimed around 230,000 to 280,000 lives (estimates vary from around 230,000 to 280,000 dead with many more missing).

On Boxing Day 2004, at around 0759 local time an earthquake measuring a magnitude between 9.1 and 9.3 struck under the sea near Aceh, North Indonesia. …show more content…

What countries/ areas?

The tsunami devastated the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and other countries with waves up to 30m causing serious damage and deaths as far as the east coast of Africa. The farthest recorded death due to the tsunami occurred at Rooi Els in South Africa, 8000km away from the epicentre. In total, eight people in South Africa died due to abnormally high sea levels and waves.

The tsunamis reached a large area because the earthquake faulting occurred over 1600 kilometers with water displacement occurring over the whole length of the fault. The 1600 kilometers of faulting affected by the earthquake lay in a nearly north-south orientation, the greatest strength of the tsunami waves moved in an east-west direction.

Due to the large distances involved, the tsunami took anywhere from fifteen minutes to ten hours to reach the various coastlines. The northern regions of the Indonesian island of Sumatra were hit very quickly, while Sri Lanka and the east cost of India were hit roughly two hours later. Thailand was also struck about two hours later, despite being closer to the epicenter, because the tsunami travelled more slowly in the shallow Andaman Sea of its western coast. On its arrival on shore, the height of the tsunami varied greatly, depending on its distance and direction from the epicenter and other factors such as the local bathymetry. Reports have the height ranging from 2-4 meters at the African coast (Kenya) up to 15-30 meters at Sumatra, the region closest to the

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