Indian Ocean Tsunami Was the Deadliest in History. 20 Years Later, Challenges Still Remain.

The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, one of many deadliest occasions in recorded historical past, was an enigma to many survivors. Some consultants have been shocked to be taught {that a} vital variety of the individuals within the path of these deadly waves had by no means heard of such a harmful phenomenon till it got here their approach.

“Tsunami is a Japanese phrase,” stated Syamsidik, an engineer who now directs the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and, like many Indonesians, makes use of just one title. At the time, he assumed that meant that solely Japan wanted to fret concerning the pure catastrophe. “It misled lots of people. Including me.”

That modified the day after Christmas in 2004, when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra set off a mammoth wave that was recorded as excessive as 16 tales, and in some locations as quick as 300 miles per hour, because it raced towards the shorelines of South and Southeast Asia and East Africa.

Earthquake sensors hinted on the potential for destruction and loss of life. But tsunami consultants watching that knowledge didn’t know who to inform. Their system confirmed no threats to coastal communities on both aspect of the Pacific Ocean, which on the time was the one area monitored for tsunami threats. There have been few, if any, screens, nor a mannequin of what may happen, within the Indian Ocean.

“It was unsettling,” stated Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center, which is hosted by the National Weather Service in Hawaii. “We have been blind.”