Acehtsunami

The word ‘Tsunami’ is of Japanese origin, which means, “harbour wave”. Tsunami are large waves that are generated when the see floor is deformed by seismic activity, vertically displacing the overlying water in the ocean. The quake occurred at a place where several massive geological plates push against each other with massive force. Tsunami has very low height while traveling over deep ocean. High waves occur only when it reaches the shallow waters, typically near the coast. The mega thrust earthquake-measuring 9.0 at Richter scale, off the western coast of northern Sumatra (Banda Ache), Indonesia was the largest of its type since the 9.2 magnitude Good Friday earthquake off Alaska in 1964.

The deadliest natural disaster caused by the tsunami generated from an undersea earthquake on 26 December 2004 in the Indian Ocean has shaken up the world. The 2004 tsunami generated waves of up to 15 meters in height and even hit Somalia at a distance of about 4500 km west of the epicenter. The tsunami traveled slowly and took seven hours to hit the farthest coast at the west. Because of the 1200 kilometer of the fault line affected by the seaquake was in a nearly north-south orientation, the greatest strength of the tsunami waves was in the east-west direction.