On December 26, 2004, at 7:59 am local time, an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1 struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Over the next seven hours, a tsunami—a series of immense ocean waves—triggered by the quake reached out across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal areas as far away as East Africa.

The tsunami caused severe damage and deaths as far as the east coast of Africa, with the furthest recorded fatality directly attributed to the tsunami at Rooi-Els, close to Cape Town, 8,000 km (5,000 mi) from the epicentre.

Nearly 2,000 of the dead were on the Queen of the Sea holiday train destroyed by the tsunami. One and a half million people were displaced from their homes, and many orphaned or separated from their families.

Dec 21, 2014 · Indonesia suffered the most deaths (167,540), followed by Sri Lanka (35,322), India (16,269), Thailand (8,212), Somalia (289), Maldives (108), Malaysia (75), Myanmar (61) and Tanzania (13). Two each died in Bangladesh, Seychelles, South Africa and …

This explains why so much water was displaced so suddenly, proding a large tsunami, and why the tsunami hit places like southern Thailand and northern Malaysia that appeared to have been blocked from the epicenter of the earthquake by Sumatra.

Dec 26, 2004 · The tsunami generated by the earthquake was recorded nearly world-wide and killed more people than any other tsunami in recorded history, almost 230,000 missing and presumed dead. The estimated material losses are $10 billion and insured losses are $2 billion.

Approximately 230,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. It is one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, which caused the tsunami, is estimated to have released energy equivalent to …

Dec 30, 2024 · Indonesian officials estimated that the death toll there alone ultimately exceeded 200,000, particularly in northern Sumatra’s Aceh province. The tsunami was particularly deadly because of lack of warning.

Jan 5, 2025 · The disaster database EM-DAT reports that 226,408 people lost their lives due to the tsunami. Northern Sumatra was the most affected region in Indonesia, where more than 120,000 people perished. The tsunami’s massive waves didn’t stay contained within Indonesia.

Dec 23, 2014 · Tsunami runup heights of more than 30 meters were observed along the west coast of Sumatra. In Aceh and Sumatera Utara Provinces, Indonesia, at least 108,100 people were killed, 127,700 are missing and presumed dead and 426,800 were displaced by the earthquake and tsunami.