26th December -the day of TSUNAMI

How will we forget the day...which caused so-much disaster.

People across Asia paused today to observe the fifth anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2004 that killed up to 230,000 people in about a dozen countries.

The devastating December 26 tsunami destroyed entire coastal communities, decimated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches, sweeping away everyone and everything in its path.

The earthquake was caused by subduction and triggered a series of devastating ttsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing nearly 230,000 people in eleven countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand were the hardest hit.

The tsunami was triggered by an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 that struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Over the next seven hours, a wall of water reached across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal areas as far away as East Africa.

With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, it is the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (0.4 inches)^[5] and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.^[6]

The lack of food, clean water and medical treatment extended the list of casualties.

Long-term environmental damage was severe as well, with villages, tourist resorts, farmland and fishing grounds demolished or inundated with debris, bodies and plant-killing salt water