Images capture devastation from 2004 tsunami

At 7:59 a.m. (local time) on the day after Christmas in 2004, the third-largest earthquake ever recorded struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, unleashing a deadly tsunami on millions of people who weren’t prepared for the devastation.

Known as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the temblor’s sheer force caused a gigantic sea-level rise that rippled across the waterway rapidly, striking over a dozen countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the eastern seaboard of Africa, on Dec. 26. 

“The [9.1 magnitude] quake displaced a massive volume of water to generate a global tsunami, which reached some areas within 20 minutes and others in seven hours. The tsunami was observed by more than 100 coastal water-level stations in the Atlantic and Pacific ocean basins,” the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported. 

“One of the hard-to-grasp statistics from the tsunami were wave heights that reached 167 feet in Indonesia’s Aceh province in northern Sumatra, which resulted in flooding up to three miles inland.”

After the waters finally calmed down, the death toll globally climbed to about 230,000, including about 167,000 in Aceh, according to NOAA, which estimated damage at U.S. $13 billion. 

In the hours and days after the tsunami, photographers in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand captured images showing the devastation throughout the region.