Unfamiliarity with warning signs

Maximum recession of tsunami waters at Kata Noi Beach, Thailand, before the 3rd, and
strongest, tsunami wave (sea visible in the right corner), 10:25 AM local time.
The first warning sign of a possible tsunami is the earthquake itself. However, tsunamis can strike
thousands of miles away, where the earthquake is only felt weakly or not at all. Also, in the
minutes preceding a tsunami strike, the sea often recedes temporarily from the coast. People in
Pacific regions are more familiar with tsunamis and often recognize this phenomenon as a sign to
head for higher ground. However, around the Indian Ocean, this rare sight reportedly induced
people, especially children, to visit the coast to investigate and collect stranded fish on as much
as 2.5 km (1.6 mi) of exposed beach, with fatal results [53].

One of the few coastal areas to evacuate ahead of the tsunami was on the Indonesian island of
Simeulue, very close to the epicentre. Island folklore recounted an earthquake and tsunami in
1907 and the islanders fled to inland hills after the initial shaking — before the tsunami struck
[54]. On Maikhao beach in northern Phuket, Thailand, a 10 year old British girl named Tilly Smith
had studied tsunamis in geography class at school and recognised the warning signs of the
receding ocean and frothing bubbles. She and her parents warned others on the beach, which
was evacuated safely [55].

Retreat and rise cycle

The tsunami was a succession of several waves, occurring in retreat and rise cycles with a period
of over 30 minutes between each peak. The third wave was the most powerful, and reached
highest, occurring about an hour and a half after the first wave. Smaller tsunamis continued to
occur for the rest of the day.

2nd tsunami wave starting to retreat, Kata Noi Beach, Thailand, 10:17AM.

Receding waters after the 2nd tsunami, 10:20 AM.

3rd tsunami wave, 11:00 AM.

4th tsunami wave, 11:22AM.

Damage and casualties
Deadliest earthquakes
Rank Earthquake CountryYear Fatalities
1 "Shaanxi" China 1556 830,000
2 "Indian Ocean" nr. Indonesia 2004 283,100
3 "Tangshan" China 1976 242,000
4 "Aleppo" Syria 1138 230,000
5 "Gansu" China 1920 c. 200,000
Main article: List of earthquakes

Part of the devastation of Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra as a result of the tsunami caused
by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake (Credit: DigitalGlobe)
The U.S. Geological Survey records the toll as 283,100 killed, 14,100 missing, and 1,126,900
people displaced [56]. Early news reports after the earthquake spoke of a toll only in the
"hundreds", but the numbers rose steadily over the following week.

Relief agencies report that one-third of the dead appear to be children. This is a result of the high
proportion of children in the populations of many of the affected regions and because children
were the least able to resist being overcome by the surging waters. Oxfam went on to report that
as many as four times more women than men were killed in some regions because they were
waiting on the beach for the fishermen to return and looking after their children in the houses. [57]
In addition to the large number of local residents, up to 9,000 foreign tourists (mostly Europeans)
enjoying the peak holiday travel season were among the dead or missing, especially
Scandinavians. The European nation hardest hit may have been Sweden, which reported more
than 500 dead or missing [58].]

Country where
deaths occurredDeaths Injured Missing Displaced
Confirmed Estimated1
Indonesia 126,915 126,915+ ~100,000 37,063 400,000- 700,000
Sri Lanka 30,957 38,195 15,686 5,6372 ~573,000
India 10,749 16,413 — 5,640 380,000
Thailand 5,3953 11,000 8,457 2,932 —
Somalia 298 298 — — 5,000
Myanmar (Burma) 61 290– 600 45 200 3,200 confirmed
Malaysia 68– 74 74 299 — —
Maldives 82 108 — 26 12,000– 22,000
Seychelles 1– 3 3 — — —
Tanzania 10 10+ — — —
Bangladesh 2 2 — — —
South Africa 24 2 — — —
Kenya 1 2 2 — —
Yemen 2 2 — — —
Madagascar — — — — 1,000+
Total 174,542 ~193,623 ~125,000 ~51,598 ~1.5 million
Bangalore, December 26 Sunday morning’s wave of death across the east coast was caused by
a tsunami — the first time that such a wave has hit Indian shores. Here is a primer on tsunami: A
tsunami is a series of waves, generated in a body of water by an impulsive disturbance that
vertically displaces the water column.

Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and even the impact of cosmic bodies,
such as meteorites, can generate tsunamis. Tsunamis attack coastlines, causing devastating
damage and loss of life.

In the open ocean, where the water may be 10,000 ft deep, a tsunami may rise only 3 ft above
the surface, with its crests as far as 950 km apart. To ships, it is barely noticeable. But the
tsunami can race along at 800 km/hr and when it reaches shallow coastal water, is truly
devastating.

What happens to a tsunami as it approaches land? The wave slows down as it approaches a
beach or coastal shelf — but its rear is still traveling at enormous speed. As a result, the whole
mass of water piles upon itself, creating a much higher wave, which breaks with overwhelming
force on the shore.

The wave crests bend as the tsunami travels (called refraction). Wave refraction is caused by
segments moving at different speeds as the water depth along the crest varies. In the Pacific
Ocean, where the typical water depth is about 4,000 mts, a tsunami travels at about 700 km/hr.
Because the rate at which a wave loses its energy is inversely related to its wave length,
tsunamis not only propagate at high speeds, they can also travel great, transoceanic distances
with little energy loss.

The first sign of an approaching tsunami is the sudden draining away of sea tide.

What does ‘‘tsunami’’ mean? Tsunami is a Japanese word with the English translation, ‘‘harbour
wave.’’ ‘‘Tsu’’ means harbour, while ‘‘nami’’ means wave. In the past, tsunamis were sometimes
referred to as ‘‘tidal waves’’ by the general public, and as ‘‘seismic sea waves’’ by the scientific
community. The term ‘‘tidal wave’’ is a misnomer; although a tsunami’s impact upon a coastline is
dependent upon the tidal level at the time a tsunami strikes, tsunamis are unrelated to the tides.

How do tsunamis differ from other water waves?Tsunamis are unlike wind-generated waves,
which many of us may have observed on a local lake or at a coastal beach, in that they are
characterised as shallow-water waves, with long periods and small wavelengths. A tsunami, on
the other hand, can have a wavelength in excess of 100 km and period on the order of one hour.
In a tsunami, the sea is usually calm, but in waves, the sea can be rough.

How do quakes generate tsunamis? Tsunamis (as in Sunday’s incident) can be generated when
the sea floor abruptly deforms.

After months of detailed studies, scientists at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in Goa
have got a better grasp of what happened on December 26, 2004. Slowly but surely, they have
unravelled how the tsunami generated by the massive earthquake off Indonesia, travelled to hit
the Indian coasts; why it hit peninsular India hard while leaving the northern parts of the east and
west coasts practically untouched; and why the killer waves hit particular areas along the
peninsular coast while sparing others.

According to Dr K.S. Krishna, senior scientist at NIO, it was the combination of the typical
geophysical characteristics of the Indian coastline that played a decisive role in where and how
disaster struck. The two main factors at play were the ‘geophysical characteristics of the Indian
sub-continental shelf edge’ and the ‘positioning of the Maldives islands off the western peninsular
coast’.

Along both coasts, the Indian sub-continent extends into the sea to varying degrees. This
extension is known as the continental shelf. In peninsular India, the shelf is a lot narrower than
that along the northern parts of the east and west coasts. The shelf is also much wider along
Mumbai’s coast and along Bangladesh’s coastal regions. Towards the Bay of Bengal for example,
the shelf extends for up to 300 km into the sea, while in parts of peninsular India, it extends for
less than 100 km at some points.

As the wave travelled from the undersea quake off Indonesia towards the Indian sub-continent, it
did not manifest in the form of a giant wave in the open seas because of the depth of the ocean.
In the Bay of Bengal, the December 26 tsunami wave measured only 0.6 m in height. So ships in
the open ocean would not have even felt it passed beneath.

However, as Dr Krishna explains, when the wave—travelling at over 750 km/hr—hit the Indian
sub-continental shelf, due to the sudden and sharp rise in the level of the ocean floor, the kinetic
energy of the wave—essentially a huge column of water—was transformed into potential energy.
The column of water, after hitting the shelf-edge, manifested itself in the form of a great wall of
water several meters high, which rushed towards the coastline.

‘‘It is here that the shelf width comes into play,’’ explains Dr Krishna. ‘‘If the shelf-width is large, as
in the Bay of Bengal, the energy of the tsunami wave is dissipated by the time it hits the coastline.
However, in south India, with the shelf-width being much shorter, the wave still has a lot of energy
in it as it hits the coastline. This causes the destruction.’’

What this means therefore, is that peninsular India (both the east and west coasts) stands a
much higher risk of devastation compared to the northern coastline, in the event of a tsunami
similar to the one that hit on December 26.

Solving the mystery of how the tsunami waves affected certain parts of the west peninsular coast,
Dr Krishna explains: ‘‘The tsunami effect on the west coast seen in Kerala and Goa were not from
the direct waves, but from diffracted (redirected) waves from the Maldives islands.’’
‘‘The waves hit Visakhapatnam at 9.05 a.m. (IST) and Tuticorin at 9.57 a.m. on the east coast. It
hit the Maldives at about 9.45 a.m. while it hit Cochin at 11.10 a.m. and Goa at 12.25 a.m. on the
west peninsular coast. These timings are indicative of the tsunami touching various places. As we
can see, Maldives islands were hit much before the west coast of peninsular India. We can infer
that the tsunami seen on the Kerala and Goa coasts was not from direct waves, but from the
waves diffracted (redirected) from the Maldives,’’ explains Dr Krishna.

SPEECH
"The threat of famine, the fact of hunger have haunted men and nations throughout history.... This
eternal problem has now taken on unprecedented scale and urgency and...can only be dealt with
by concerted worldwide action.

"Our challenge goes far deeper than one area of human endeavor....We are faced not just with
the problem of food but with the accelerating momentum of our interdependence.... In the past
thirty years the world came to assume that a stable economic system and spreading prosperity
would continue indefinitely.

"Now there are fundamental questions about our capacity to meet even our most basic needs....
Partly due to bad weather around the globe, world grain production declined for the first time in
two decades. We [are] made ominously conscious of the thin edge between hope and hunger,
and of the world's dependence on the surplus production of a few nations....

"The contemporary agenda of energy, food and inflation exceeds the capacity of any single
government, or even a few governments together, to resolve. All nations...are linked to a single
economic system. Preoccupation with narrow advantage is foredoomed.... The poorest and the
weakest nations will suffer most. Discontent and instabilities will be magnified in all countries.
New dangers will be posed to recent progress in reducing international tensions.

"This need not be our future. There is great opportunity as well as grave danger in the current
crisis.

"We must begin here with the challenge of food. No social system, ideology or principle of justice
can tolerate a world in which the spiritual and physical potential of hundreds of millions is stunted
from elemental hunger or inadequate nutrition. National pride or regional suspicions lose any
moral or practical justification if they prevent us from overcoming this scourge.

"In short, we are convinced the world faces a challenge new in its severity, its pervasiveness, and
its global dimension.... Let us agree that the scale and severity of the task require a collaborative
effort unprecedented in history.

"And let us make global cooperation in food a model for our response to other challenges of an
interdependent world—energy, inflation, population, protection of the environment."

Tsunamis
Tsunami: Killer Waves

The most infamous tsunami of modern times hit Indian Ocean shorelines on the day after
Christmas 2004. That tsunami is believed to have packed the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type
atomic bombs. Some 150,000 people were killed in a single day.
Photograph by Deshakalyan Chowdhury
The most infamous tsunami of modern times hit Indian Ocean shorelines on the day after
Christmas 2004. That tsunami is believed to have packed the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type
atomic bombs. Some 150,000 people were killed in a single day.
A tsunami is a series of ocean waves that sends surges of water, sometimes reaching heights of
over 100 feet (30.5 meters), onto land. These walls of water can cause widespread destruction
when they crash ashore.

These awe-inspiring waves are typically caused by large, undersea earthquakes at tectonic plate
boundaries. When the ocean floor at a plate boundary rises or falls suddenly it displaces the
water above it and launches the rolling waves that will become a tsunami.

Tsunami Safety Tips

Tsunamis can wreak havoc on coastal populations and landscapes. The December 26, 2004,
tsunami in the Indian Ocean claimed some 150,000 lives and cleared the landscape on millions of
acres of oceanfront terrain. Here are some measures you can take to avoid trouble if you're
caught in a tsunami.

Shoved ashore by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a brightly painted fishing boat sits
among the battered buildings of Nam Kem, a fishing village in Thailand. A massive 9.0-magnitude
earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, triggered the catastrophic tsunami.

Safety tips

When in coastal areas, stay alert for tsunami warnings.

Plan an evacuation route that leads to higher ground.
Know the warning signs of a tsunami: rapidly rising or falling coastal waters and rumblings of an
offshore earthquake.
Never stay near shore to watch a tsunami come in.
A tsunami is a series of waves. Do not return to an affected coastal area until authorities say it is
safe.

Did You Know?

On Dec. 26, 2004, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake—the largest earthquake in 40 years—occurred

off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The earthquake triggered a tsunami in the
Indian Ocean, the deadliest in world history. More than 226,000 died and twelve countries felt the
devastation.
Tsunami Facts: How They Form, Warning Signs, and Safety Tips
<< Back to Page 1 Page 2 of 2
The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 caused waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters) in
some places, according to news reports. In other places witnesses described a rapid surging of
the ocean.

Flooding can extend inland by a thousand feet (300 meters) or more. The enormous energy of a
tsunami can lift giant boulders, flip vehicles, and demolish houses. Knowledge of the history of
tsunamis in your area is a good indicator of what is likely to happen in a future tsunami event.

• Tsunamis do not necessarily make their final approach to land as a series of giant breaking
waves. They may be more like a very rapidly rising tide. This may be accompanied by much
underwater turbulence, sucking people under and tossing heavy objects around. Entire beaches
have been stripped away by tsunamis.

Many witnesses have said a tsunami sounds like a freight train.

• The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami could rank as the most devastating on record. More than
200,000 people lost their lives, many of them washed out to sea.
The most damaging tsunami on record before 2004 was the one that killed an estimated 40,000
people in 1782 following an earthquake in the South China Sea. In 1883 some 36,500 people
were killed by tsunamis in the South Java Sea, following the eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa
volcano. In northern Chile more than 25,000 people were killed by a tsunami in 1868.

• The Pacific is by far the most active tsunami zone, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But tsunamis have been generated in other bodies of water,
including the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. North
Atlantic tsunamis included the tsunami associated with the 1775 Lisbon earthquake that killed as
many as 60,000 people in Portugal, Spain, and North Africa. This quake caused a tsunami as
high as 23 feet (7 meters) in the Caribbean.

• The Caribbean has been hit by 37 verified tsunamis since 1498. Some were generated locally
and others were the result of events far away, such as the earthquake near Portugal. The
combined death toll from these Caribbean tsunamis is about 9,500.

• Large tsunami waves were generated in the Marmara Sea in Turkey after the Izmit earthquake
of 1999.

Warning Signs

• An earthquake is a natural tsunami warning. If you feel a strong quake do not stay in a place
where you are exposed to a tsunami. If you hear of an earthquake be aware of the possibility of a
tsunami and listen to the radio or television for additional information. Remember that an
earthquake can trigger killer waves thousands of miles across the ocean many hours after the
event generated a tsunami.

• Witnesses have reported that an approaching tsunami is sometimes preceded by a noticeable

fall or rise in the water level. If you see the ocean receding unusually rapidly or far it's a good sign
that a big wave is on its way. Go to high ground immediately.

Many people were killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami because they went down to the beach to
view the retreating ocean exposing the seafloor. Experts believe that a receding ocean may give
people as much as five minutes' warning to evacuate the area.

• Remember that a tsunami is a series of waves and that the first wave may not be the most
dangerous. The danger from a tsunami can last for several hours after the arrival of the first
wave. A tsunami wave train may come as a series of surges that are five minutes to an hour
apart. The cycle may be marked by a repeated retreat and advance of the ocean. Stay out of
danger until you hear it is safe.

Survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami reported that the sea surged out as fast and as powerfully
as it came ashore. Many people were seen being swept out to sea when the ocean retreated.

• A tsunami surge may be small at one point of the shore and large at another point a short
distance away. Do not assume that because there is minimal sign of a tsunami in one place it will
be like that everywhere else.

• Tsunamis can travel up rivers and streams that lead to the ocean. Stay away from rivers and
streams that lead to the ocean as you would stay away from the beach and ocean if there is a
tsunami.

• It's always a good idea to keep a store of emergency supplies that include sufficient
medications, water, and other essentials sufficient for at least 72 hours. Tsunami, earthquake,
hurricane—an emergency can develop with little or no warning.
Advice for Sailors

• NOAA advises that since tsunami wave activity is imperceptible in the open ocean, vessels
should not return to port if they are at sea and a tsunami warning has been issued for the area.
Tsunamis can cause rapid changes in water level and unpredictable, dangerous currents in
harbors and ports. Boat owners may want to take their vessels out to sea if there is time and if the
sailors are allowed to do so by port authorities. People should not stay on their boats moored in
harbors. Tsunamis often destroy boats and leave them wrecked above the normal waterline.

• Heightened awareness of the potential for a tsunami to inundate the U.S. western coastline has
caused NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Federal Emergency Management
Administration to initiate a program to predict tsunamis more accurately. As a tsunami traverses
the ocean, a network of sensitive recorders on the sea floor measures pressure changes in the
overhead water, sending the information to sensors on buoys, which in turn relay the data to
satellites for immediate transmission to warning centers.

• The Tsunami Warning System (TWS) in the Pacific, composed of 26 member countries,
monitors seismological and tidal stations throughout the Pacific region. The system evaluates
potentially tsunami-causing earthquakes and issues tsunami warnings. An international warning
system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean was launched in June 2006.

• Use your common sense. If you feel or hear of a strong earthquake do not wait for an official
tsunami warning. Tell your family and friends to join you in leaving for high ground.