The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, known by the scientific community as the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, was an 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. Although initial estimates had put the worldwide death toll at over 275,000 with thousands of others missing, more recent analysis compiled by the
United Nations lists a total of 229,866 people lost, including 186,983 dead and 42,883 missing. The figure excludes 400 to 600 people who are believed to have perished in
Myanmar, which is more than that government's official figure of only 61 dead. If the higher Myanmar figures are reliable, the death toll would include at least 230,000 people. The catastrophe is the ninth deadliest
natural disaster in
modern history. The disaster is known in
Asia and in the international media as the Asian Tsunami; it is called the Boxing Day Tsunami in
Australia,
Canada,
New Zealand, and the
United Kingdom, because it took place on
Boxing Day. The tsunami occurred exactly one year after the 2003 earthquake that devastated the southern
Iranian city of
Bam and exactly two years before the
2006 Hengchun earthquake.
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