The Worst Natural Disaster Since Krakatau Errupted

A 7:58 . . local time on December 4, 2004, an earthquake registering 9.1 on the Richter scale shook the depths of Indonesian waters off the coast of its northernmost province. The epicenter of the quake was located at 3.316° North Latitude and 95.854° East Longitude, at a depth of 30 kilometers and a distance of around 250 kilometers south of Banda Aceh, the capital of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province. According to The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (Badan Meteorologi dan Geofisika: BMG), the earthquake, which happened on a Sunday morning, was the worst natural disaster in Indonesia since the eruption of Krakatau Mountain in 1883. An upheaval in one of the earth’s plates under the ocean bordering India and Myanmar resulted in the breaking away and sinking of a 1,200 kilometer segment of the plate, which, in turn, caused a major shift in the Sunda megathrust. This is what triggered the earthquake that drove the tsunami. . Eyewitnesses to the disaster say that the tsunami began with the ocean waters suddenly pulling back about 200 meters from the shore. Ten minutes later a 20 meter high wave rolled into shore at a speed of 500 kilometers per hour, smashing into the western coast of Aceh. The tsunami not only hit Aceh, but also swept over the coastlines of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and countries in eastern Africa. This earthquake was followed by much milder aftershocks into the first days of 2005. Then, on March 28, 2005, at 11:09 p.m. local time, another earthquake occurred in Indonesian waters. This quake, with its epicenter at 2.074° North Latitude and 97.013° East Longitude, and at a depth of 30 kilometers, around 245 kilometers southwest of Medan, the capital of North Sumatera, registered 8.6 on the Richter scale. Together, these massive disasters killed 127,707, with 635,384 others losing their homes. The worst damage was done as far inland as six kilometers along an 800 kilometer stretch of Aceh coast (equivalent to the distance between Jakarta and Surabaya in Java or San Francisco and San Diego in the Unitsed States). As many as 139,000 homes were severely damaged, bridges were destroyed, electrical power facilities were knocked out, telecommunications systems no longer functioned, water distribution came to a halt, and 2,600 kilometers of roads were damaged. Not only that, but health service facilities of all kinds and schools were heavily damaged or destroyed.