The Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake, known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.
Thw Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was a great undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) December 26, 2004 with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing large numbers of people and inundating coastal communities across South and Southeast Asia, including parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.
A total of 275,000 people were killed due to the Indian Ocean tsunami.
The magnitude of the earthquake that cause the Asian Tsunami to occur was between 9.1 to 9.3 on the Richter scale.
The total energy released by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was estimated early on to be as much as 3.35 exajoules (3.35×1018 joules). This is equivalent to over 930 terawatt hours, 0.8 gigatons of TNT.
This energy was almost equal to the energy used in the United States in 11 days.
The shift of mass and the massive release of energy cause by the earthquake, very slightly altered the Earth's rotation. The exact amount is yet undetermined, but theoretical models suggest the earthquake shortened the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds.
Scientists have found out that the waves of tsunami attained a height of 24m (80 feet).
This disaster is commonly known as the Asian Tsunami.
According to Tad Murty, vice-president of the Tsunami Society, the total energy of the tsunami waves was equivalent to about five megatons of TNT (20 petajoules).
This is more than twice the total explosive energy used during all of World War II (including the two atomic bombs).
