ABSTRACT
The tsunami that rolled across the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004, affected several countries. Although Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and South India were hit hardest, several other countries, including Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, and Somalia, sustained damage. The tsunami’s epicenter was off the coast of Acheh in West Sumatra, in Indonesia, north of Simulue Island, at a depth of nineteen miles. It took a toll of more than 250,000 people in eleven countries. The worst-hit population center was Banda Acheh in West Sumatra, Indonesia, with 128,000 dead and about 40,000 missing. In some areas, the coastal waves were as high as a hundred feet and, as in northwestern Sumatra, along a sixty-mile seacoast. A second earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale occurred on March 28, 2005, in northern Sumatra.
