Posted on 12/24/2005 6:39:40 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
It killed 280,000 people and left more than a million without homes. Some 15,000 people are still missing a year later and presumed dead.
It shook the Earth so severely that sensors picking up the quake in Oklahoma on the other side of the planet, while high waves radiated as far as Mexico and the Arctic. The global sea level actually rose by a millimeter, and the very shape of the Earth changed enough to slightly lengthen the day.
It was the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, and today the horrible event is being remembered all around the Indian Ocean.
Not since the year 1556 -- when a massive temblor killed some 830,000 people in China -- had such a devastating earthquake stuck this planet.
The quake itself lasted for 10 minutes, a total outrage compared to the usual few seconds of shaking associated with even huge earthquakes.
Indonesia suffered the immediate effects, mostly around Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra -- that city of 400,000 was mostly demolished.
A year later, the first "replacement house" has gone up in that wrecked, haunted city.
And then the giant waves moved across the Indian Ocean, radiating out from the 750-mile-long rupture under the sea, at first barely visible in the deep water and finally up to a hundred feet high as the tsunami devastated one Asian coastal city after another, washing away entire villages, resorts, factories, hospitals, ports and highways.
Many hours later, the waves reached the eastern coast of Africa, where most victims still hadn't heard about the horror that struck south Asia.
Mine too, I was in Phuket for St. Pat's Day, and everyone had to go to Scruffy Murphy's instead.
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