2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami

A magnitude 9.1 undersea earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, 2004, triggered tsunamis across the Indian Ocean and killed more than 220,000 people.

Sunda megathrust: The plate boundary where the Indo-Australian Plate descends beneath the Burma and Sunda plates. The earthquake ruptured this subduction-zone fault over a vast stretch off Sumatra.
Aceh: A province at the northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, bordering the Andaman Sea. Aceh lay nearest the rupture and suffered catastrophic tsunami destruction.
Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System: A regional network for detecting tsunamis and distributing warnings around the Indian Ocean. It was developed after 2004 exposed the region's lack of an effective warning system.
Indo-Australian Plate: A major tectonic plate that moves northward and interacts with plates beneath the eastern Indian Ocean. Its convergence with the Burma region drove the subduction loading released in 2004.
2004 earthquake rupture model: A scientific reconstruction of how fault slip varied across the 2004 earthquake rupture. Seismic and geodetic data constrain the rupture's length, speed, and uneven slip.
Subduction zone: A region where one tectonic plate descends beneath another into the mantle. The earthquake arose from convergent plate motion at a subduction boundary.
Thailand tsunami disaster: The tsunami's impact on Thailand's Andaman coast on December 26, 2004. The waves struck resort areas and coastal communities on Thailand's western shore.
Tsunami warning system: A network that detects tsunami-generating events and communicates alerts to threatened areas. The disaster prompted investment in warnings where none had existed across the ocean.
Burma Plate: A small tectonic plate carrying parts of Myanmar and the Andaman Sea region. The Burma Plate formed part of the overriding plate above the earthquake rupture.
Tsunami inundation modeling: Numerical simulation of tsunami flooding across coastal land and infrastructure. Models help explain observed flooding and improve estimates of future coastal impacts.

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