What Happened That Day?
On the day of December 26th, 2004 there was a massive 9.0 earthquake in the middle of the indian ocean. An earthquake is when the Earth's tectonic plates shift. The Burma plate on the Indian Ocean's floor moved and created the earthquake. It must have been moving for very many years and finally snapped. The Sumatra Andaman earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis. The epicenter of the earthquake Simeulue and the Indonesian islands, which is why those islands had the most damage. The reason that the tsunami wave was so big, was because it was in shallow water. In shallow water, waves are much more slower in the making of. which makes them much more destructable. Tsunamis are very rare in the Indian Ocean, but have happened before. The tsunami traveled all the way to africa, almost 3,000 miles away. On the surface, the tsunami wave isnt very big and so boats and ships dont notice it. When a tsunami reaches shallow water, the water is very fast, and when it reaches the coast the top is faster than the bottom. It then creates a huge wave that can be as high as 50 feet. Tsunamis can extend inland as much as 1000 feet. Many witnesses said that the tsunami sounded like a the roar of a jet. Many saw that th ocean line was receding but none of them knew what it met. Many small villages and towns noticed that lobsters were showing and they rushed to the shores to gather them. Most of them died for it. Nearly 230,000 people died that day.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1227_041226_tsunami_2.html