[ad_1]
On this day 18 years ago – December 26, 2004 – one of the largest and deadliest earthquakes ever recorded caused mass destruction, affecting 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean. At about 8 am on that fateful day, two tectonic plates collided, causing the floor of the Indian Ocean to hurtle to rush forward about 15 meters towards Indonesia. According to the Royal Geographical Society, the earthquake released energy equivalent to 23,000 Hiroshima bombs. One of the scientists, Dr. Keri Syh, predicted the quake, and has since warned that another quake in the same area could happen “soon” — in our lifetime.
Geologist and seismologist, the American Seismological Society has described Dr. Sy as “at the forefront of understanding earthquake frequency and fault behavior.”
The 72-year-old, who has extensive experience in the seismic region of Indonesia, after spending a decade on Sumatra and neighboring islands, found that the fault erupts in four different sections every 200 years.
He proved that there was a pair of earthquakes in 1350 and 1380, another in the seventeenth century, and a third pair in 1797 and 1833.
Although it is impossible to know for sure, he predicted an earthquake in 2004 and sought to warn the government and local residents by distributing pamphlets.
Speaking to 60 Minutes Australia in 2005, Dr. Syah said he could predict the magnitude of the next earthquake, and explained: “I’d bet the next big earthquake will be at least a magnitude 8.2 and maybe an 8.7 or a little bigger.”
The 2004 earthquake had a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale, which caused a 17.4-meter-high tsunami in the Indian Ocean that lasted nearly seven hours.
Streets swept away people, cars, trees, homes and debris, with Aceh province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra worst affected. Nearly five percent of the local population was killed there.
Hospitals and morgues struggled to cope with the 570,000 displaced people and 179,000 buildings and homes destroyed in Indonesia alone.
Read more: Tsunami scare: Boxing Day disaster was ‘wake-up call’, professor says
Two years after the disaster, he visited the tragic scene of devastation and warned: “It’s painful to see but that’s what we’ll see more of in the 21st century.”
More than 80 percent of large earthquakes occur around the fringes of the Pacific Ocean, according to the British Geological Survey, and the area is known as the “Ring of Fire.”
Another quake of similar strength will happen again “soon,” Dr. Syah warned, explaining that children who ran in the street in 2006 will witness it happen in their lifetime. “I don’t know if it’s a few decades or a few months,” he added.
The 2004 earthquake prompted a global aid response with $6.25 billion – the equivalent of about £13 billion today – donated to a UN relief fund that helped the 14 affected countries, of which Indonesia received the largest number.
DON’T MISS: Meghan Markle suffers from princess syndrome, says psychologist [ANALYSIS]The war spills over into Russia as Putin claims “US-made missiles” have been shot down. [REPORT]Cheese can lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels [INSIGHT]
The Tsunami Effects and Recovery Study Report, launched in 2005, found that the disaster had caused “tremendous” damage to the Indonesian province of Aceh.
But within five years of the disaster, many individuals had returned to the homes they had owned, and a decade later, the communities had both new and old residents.
Preparing for an earthquake and preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths is difficult, Dr. Syah said, especially in poor countries like Indonesia.
Speaking to National Geographic in 2018, he wasn’t sure if progress in prevention would solve even a tenth of the problems that might occur in a future event. He said, “Is a good job being done? Yes. There are people trying to educate; there are people trying to build vertical evacuation structures. But will this solve even 10 percent of the problem? I have my doubts.”
|
Sources 2/ https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1711746/boxing-day-tsunami-earthquake-spt The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
[ad_2]