Alan V. Morgan
Most of the world's population added this new word to their lexicons at year end 2004. Peter and I had almost finished the "Fall version" of What On Earth, but as discussions of the massive earthquake near Banda Aceh, Sumatra, and the unprecedented tsunami waves that ravaged the shorelines of southeast Asia dominated the news we thought that we should modify this issue. By now almost all people on Earth are aware of the scale of the disaster, although figures on deaths and damage are still being added to the total. So far more than 150,000 are known to be dead, almost 100,000 in Indonesia alone, with an additional 30,000 in Sri Lanka and the damage undoubtedly runs into billions of dollars. The number of dead in this tragedy ranks the Banda Aceh earthquake and associated tsunamis as the seventh largest recorded in human history. Certainly the almost unprecedented visual coverage provided by the world's media has etched the scale of human suffering and grief on everyone's minds. But what is the geological background to this story, and what were the elements that brought the catastrophe to reality?
Figure 1 (below): The 9.0 Mw earthquake epicentre is illustrated by a large circle with a spot. The Plate boundaries are marked together with places mentioned in this text and the smaller circles represent aftershocks.
So what happened at 0:58.53 on December 26, 2004? At 7:58:53 local time a large slippage took place at the junction of the India Plate and the Burma "Micro- Plate" some 250 km SSE of Banda Aceh in northernmost Sumatra (Figure 1). This type of slippage causes what is known as a "megathrust earthquake". The movement was created as a result of stresses between the India Plate, which is being driven under the Burma Plate. The boundary can be seen in part along the line of the Sunda Trench that runs parallel to, and several hundred km west of, the Sumatran coastline. Here the India Plate is moving about 6cm per year to the northeast plunging beneath the Burma Plate. Rocks at the interface were gradually warped until they ruptured, and the breakage resulted in a tremendous release of energy. The area affected initially was at least 100 km in size and the horizontal displacement seems to have been about 15m at maximum. The tilting of the Burma Plate as it was underthrust and buckled by the India Plate resulted in a seaward uplift of the sea floor by about 2m over a distance of some 400km by 80km. At the same time the landward side of the seafloor was depressed by about 2m in a region about 100 km by 50 km close to the Sumatra coast. Almost immediately the huge shock wave from the initial earthquake started to initiate sympathetic shocks along the whole 1,200km length of the Burma Plate. Many of these would have been catastrophically large in their own right if they had taken place close to large population centres. At the same time a series of tremendous waves was initiated from the shifting configuration of the sea floor (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The initiation of the megathrust earthquake and tsunamis. The vertical scale is greatly exaggerated. The average displacement on the fault plane was about 15m over a distance of 100km. The sea floor immediately above was raised about 2m and a smaller area was dropped by a similar amount. The oscillation on the sea surface generated the tsunami waves.
I always tell my students that if they are on the seashore and the water suddenly starts to move rapidly offshore, don't wander down to see flapping fish and pick up shells, just head for the highest point that you can find furthest from the coast, because a tsunami wave is likely to follow. This is exactly what one ten-year old British girl told her mother. She had just finished a school class on earthquakes and tsunamis before going on vacation in Thailand. She communicated this to her mother who alerted Thai staff at their resort and 100 people ran to safety before the waves swept in. Another survivor in Banda Aceh realized that the earthquake would likely be followed by a tsunami. He gathered his wife and two children, put them all on his motor cycle and headed inland until he ran out of gas. They all survived, watching the waves crashing across Banda Aceh from a hillside outside the town. In both cases some basic geological knowledge allowed the survivors a sufficient time interval that they were able to escape.
Detailed satellite images have allowed us to see "before and after" images of many of the areas affected, and it allows us to appreciate the nature of the tsunami and its results in stunning detail. Space precludes presentation of many of the details and I have inserted several that I feel are appropriate. The comparisons are all provided courtesy of DigitalGlobe "Quick Bird images".
Figure 3: Banda Aceh. A prosperous community on the northernmost tip of Sumatra was the closest large town to the earthquake epicentre. Of the 300,000 residents about 100,000 are believed to have died. The two images above illustrate the scale of the disaster. The images have been cropped and aligned to show the same area. The yellow building with a black spot and the large grey-roofed structure (bottom left) provide reference points. Below (first image, taken June 23, 2004) is large, silted, meander loop. In the second image below (taken December 28, 2004) this area has been completed filled with debris, likely floating on the water surface. Few building are still standing after this area was rocked by the Force 8 earthquake. DigitalGlobe images.
The tsunami waves did not stop on the western coasts of southeast Asia, they also raced across the Indian Ocean and slammed into the coastline of Sri Lanka and southern India. The town of Hambantota was devastated by waves. At least 1,100 are reported dead and 1,000 missing out of a population of about 48,000. Many of the boats in Figure 6 ended up inside the lower part of the town. Similar stories are typical along the northern, eastern, and southern Sri Lanka coastline, where over 30,000 are reported killed with many more still missing. The death toll is estimated at about 15,000 along the southern coast of India. And still the waves rolled on.
Figure 4: Resort area at Khao Lak, Thailand. Image (below, taken in 2003) shows the resort and pool, a small bridged stream and fish ponds to the west and north. The second image below shows the same area on December 28, 2004. Note the almost complete absence of vegetation, the almost total removal of beach sands, and the enlargement of the estuary area. Not included in this image is the destruction of the reef area to the northwest. Both images courtesy of DigitalGlobe. Khao Lak was hit by tsunami waves about 2 hours after the earthquake whose epicentre was approximately 650 miles away. Wave heights in this area were estimated at 10m.
Figure 5: Kalutara beach area about 40km south of Colombo, Sri Lanka showing "normal" tide on January 1, 2004 and the abnormal withdrawal of the sea on December 26, 2004. The cover image illustrates what happened shortly after as the tsunami wave surged into Kalutara. DigitalGlobe images.
The waves were recorded as tidal fluctuations in New Zealand and even along parts of the west coasts on North and South America. As I complete this, more images are coming in of the ravaged coastline of Sumatra. News from my sister is that one of her closest friends and family were killed in Thailand where they had gone for a Christmas vacation.
Figure 6: The beach at Hambantota, SE Sri Lanka. (first image below taken by AVM in January 1995). Note the boats on the beach. Second image below (courtesy Plan International) shows the lower area of Hambantota in late December 2004.
This is an event that stunned the world. Geologically we expect this to happen, but it is always a shock when the human side of the disaster is revealed. Politicians are vacillating on how and where aid should be delivered. Three billion US dollars has been donated, and a small fraction of this sum in advance could have established a tsunami warning system for the areas most affected. Likely little could be done for the coastline of Sumatra which was so close to the epicentre of a huge earthquake, but even there people would have had enough warning to escape the waves. Certainly in Thailand, Sri Lanka and India there was sufficient warning to have moved people the few kilometers inland. That would have been enough in Khoa Lak to have saved several thousands. A few simple lessons in basic geology would also have helped. And perhaps the most ironic observation is that less than one month before this disaster the UNESCO decided to close its Division of Earth Sciences.
Alan V. Morgan
Figure
7
(below):
Wave
heights
generated
by
the
great
Sumatran
earthquake
on
December
26,
2004.
Areas
in
red,
orange,
and
brownish
orange
are
regions
that
were
worst
hit.
Note
that
the
waves
were
attenuated
at
the
Maldive
Islands,
southwest
of
India.
The
waves
eventually
reached
the
coastline
of
Africa
where
deaths
were
recorded,
particularly
in
Somalia
where
at
least
150
persons
drowned.
