With waves as tall as 100 feet and capable of moving as fast as jet planes, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated more than a dozen countries and left nearly 230,000 people dead.
On the morning of December 26, 2004, people across the Indian Ocean basin noticed a peculiar sight: the ocean seemed to have receded, leaving great swaths of wet sand uncovered. Locals and tourists in places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand went to explore the exposed sand, to catch fish, or to pick up seashells, but as they marveled at this unusual natural phenomenon, many began to notice a roaring in the distance.
The sea, a mere stripe on the horizon, had begun to race toward land. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, also known as the Boxing Day tsunami or the Asian tsunami, had begun. Over the next seven hours, it would wreak devastating destruction across more than a dozen nations, while waves as tall as buildings, and moving as fast as jet planes, smashed into the shore.
In Thailand, one local survivor later remembered fleeing the waves on motorbikes with her family — only to have a wall of black water, frothy with debris, catch up with them. Elsewhere in the country, a tourist awoke to find water rushing under her door — then watched the waves fling her husband the length of a football field as she was submerged under the water.
U.S. NavySumatra in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The worst natural disaster of the 21st century to date — and one of the worst natural disasters in recorded human history — had begun with an earthquake deep in the ocean near Sumatra, one so powerful that its force was equal to more than 20,000 atomic bombs. The massive quake triggered the tsunami, which first hit Indonesia before smashing through beaches in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, and several other countries. By the end of the day, the tsunami was even felt as far away as Australia and Africa.
More than 100,000 people were killed in Indonesia, the hardest-hit nation, as well as tens of thousands in Sri Lanka and India, and thousands more elsewhere. Overall, the 2004 tsunami left a staggering death toll of nearly 230,000 and displaced more than a million people.
This is the story of how the tsunami unfolded, from the powerful early morning quake that struck on December 26, 2004, to the deadly waves that pummeled a dozen nations across the Indian Ocean basin, leaving scores dead and survivors reeling in the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy.
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