A monument beside the sea in South West Sri Lanka reminds the visitors off the devastation caused by the 2004 Tsunami.About The Tsunami:The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.The resulting tsunami is given various names, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, South Asian Tsunami, Indonesian Tsunami, and Boxing Day Tsunami.
The earthquake was caused by subduction and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people in fourteen countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (98 ft) high.[5] It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia was the hardest hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.
With a magnitude of Mw 9.1--9.3, it is the third largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 centimetre (0.4 inches)and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.Its epicentre was between Simeulue and mainland Indonesia.The plight of the affected people and countries prompted a worldwide humanitarian response. In all, the worldwide community donated more than $14 billion (2004 U.S. dollars) in humanitarian aid.The earthquake was initially documented as moment magnitude 8.8. In February 2005 scientists revised the estimate of the magnitude to 9.0.[10] Although the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has accepted these new numbers, the United States Geological Survey has so far not changed its estimate of 9.1. The most recent studies in 2006 have obtained a magnitude of Mw 9.1--9.3. Dr. Hiroo Kanamori of the California Institute of Technology believes that Mw 9.2 is a good representative value for the size of this great earthquake.[11]
The hypocentre of the main earthquake was approximately 160 km (100 mi), in the Indian Ocean just north of Simeulue island, off the western coast of northern Sumatra, at a depth of 30 km (19 mi) below mean sea level (initially reported as 10 km (6.2 mi)). The northern section of the Sunda megathrust, which had been assumed dormant, ruptured; the rupture having a length of 1,300 km (810 mi).The earthquake (followed by the tsunami) was felt simultaneously as far away as Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore and the Maldives.Splay faults, or secondary "pop up faults", caused long, narrow parts of the sea floor to pop up in seconds. This quickly elevated the height and increased the speed of waves, causing the complete destruction of the nearby Indonesian town of Lhoknga. The epicentre of the earthquake, just north of Simeulue Island.
Indonesia lies between the Pacific Ring of Fire along the north-eastern islands adjacent to and including New Guinea and the Alpide belt along the south and west from Sumatra, Java, Bali, Flores, and Timor.
Great earthquakes such as the Sumatra-Andaman event, which are invariably associated with megathrust events in subduction zones, have seismic moments that can account for a significant fraction of the global earthquake moment across century-scale time periods. The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was the largest earthquake since 1964, and the second largest since the Kamchatka earthquake of October 16, 1737.(Wikipedia)
Loading...
6:28
SRILANKA 2004/12/26 TSUNAMIby asanka425136 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)