This is the 26th December 2004 Tsunami Case Study for GCSE Geography revision.

1. Tsunami Case Study
Shivay Sachdeva

2. Boxing Day Tsunami
• In the Indian Ocean in 2004.
• At destructive plate margin.
• 9.1 on Richter Scale.
• Plates moving down into the mantle
cracked, moved quickly, lots of water
displaced. Triggered tsunami, 30m high
waves.

3. Primary Effects
• Affected lots of countries boundaries near
Indian Ocean.
• Around 230,000 killed or still missing.
• Whole towns and villages destroyed – Over
1.7 million people lost homes.
• Infrastructure damaged.
• Mangroves, coral reefs, forests, and sand
dunes destroyed by the waves.

4. Secondary Effects
• Millions of fishermen lost livelihoods.
• Tourism industry suffered.
• Farmland contaminated by salt water –
plants cannot grow.
• Submarine landslides.
• Trees uprooted.
• Lack of water causing diseases.

5. Short term responses
• Within days, hundreds of millions of pounds
had been pledged by foreign countries to
help supply aid.
• Foreign countries sent ships, planes, soldiers
and specialists to help.

6. Long-term responses
• Billions of pounds invested by MEDC
countries to help rebuild the infrastructure
of the countries affected.
• Programmes set up to rebuild houses and
help people get back to work.
• Tsunami warning system in place.
• Disaster management plans put in place.
Volunteers trained for future tsunamis.

7. Why were so many people negatively
effected by the Tsunami?
• Sewage mixed with drinking water, so
diseases spread as well as nothing to drink.
• Also, affected countries did not prepare.
• Did not predict tsunami.
• They were LEDC’s so did not invest money
for protection.