Talk:2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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How much energy?

The article says "The total energy released by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake exceeds the total amount of energy consumed in the United States in one month, ... Using the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2, this amount of energy is equivalent to a mass of about 100 kg (220 lb) If a 1200km lift of fifteen metres of the sea floor from a depth of 36km isn't six to ten orders of magnitude greater than that, I'll eat my hat, especially if the equivalence to mass is 100kg. -- Centroyd

Um... that's a completely meaningless comparison. Quite frankly I'm having such a hard time comprehending why you made it that I can't form a more meaningful response. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:43, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The "one-month US energy" and the "Hurricane Isabel" both come straight from the footnote referenced. I also found another reference on a USGS FAQ page that says a 9.0 magnitude earthquake = 32,000 megatons of TNT [1]

I don't know about the 100 kg of mass, though. I tried to do a a quick E=mc² calculation to verify this 100 kg figure (which someone else added):

From the megaton page, this is 32 × 10³ × 4.184 × 10¹⁵ joules = 133 × 10¹⁸ = 1.33 × 10²⁰ joules. Since c = 299,792,458 m/s, c² = 8.98 × 10¹⁶ and by E=mc² we get m = E/c² = 1479 kg ?

Did I do the math right? Is it 100 kg of mass or 1500 kg? -- Curps 03:22, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I get around 1500KG, not bothering with as many decimal places in my calculation. About 1600 metric tons U235 fission equivalent. Or we both use MS Windows calculator and it has a bug.

I think the error is that it is grams not kilograms. So 1.5 kg. I'm editing the article til we have a better result. If I'm wrong please change it back. Rich Farmbrough 23:10, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC) I'm wrong. Joule is defined in term s of Kg/m/s not g/m/s Rich Farmbrough

Furthermore, with 6 × 10⁹ humans on Earth, and with the heat of vaporization of water being 2260 kJ/kg, and a liter of water weighing more or less exactly 1 kilogram, boiling one liter of water for every human on earth requires 6 × 10⁹ × 2.26 × 10⁶ joules = 1.356 × 10¹⁶ joules. So 1.33 × 10²⁰ joules is enough to boil 10⁴ liters of water for every person on Earth, or 10,000.

Again, did I do the math right? Is it 5000 liters as originally posted, or 10,000? -- Curps 03:38, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Using the drastically revised USGS figure of 2.0 × 10¹⁸ joules [2], we repeat the calculation, we get 2.0 × 10¹⁸ joules / 1.356 × 10¹⁶ joules = 1.5 × 10² = 150 litres of water per person on Earth. -- Curps 02:11, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You're missing my point. He seems to be comparing the 100 kg to the mass of rock that was moved. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:53, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, he seems to perhaps understand mass-energy equivalence. However, he seems to think that a 1200-km strip of sea floor was lifted 36 km straight upward. In any case his post is not entirely clear, but the whole thing inspired me to research the energy involved more thoroughly, which is a good thing in the end. -- Curps 08:35, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I reckon a lot of these energy comparisons are a bit of a waste of space and not worth retaining; at the most, have one (the e=mc² one would be best). Also think that all the imperial measure conversions bracketed after every measurement throughout the article clutter the page up horribly and should be removed; this is an international and scientific page, and people in the area are 100% metric - MPF 15:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The E=mc² comparison isn't meaningful to most people. Of course, neither is the US energy use comparison either. It's hard to compare things on this scale. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:48, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's all within a single paragraph so it's really not that much of a waste of space. And we can't assume that the audience for this article consists of scientists, it's a major international topic with a very broad audience. Finally, for the English wikipedia a very significant fraction of the audience is American laymen and it is a courtesy to provide them units they can understand. -- Curps 21:05, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

- Using a chart at work, from the Iris Consortium the energy released by a M 9.0 earthquake is equivalent to 1,800,000,000,000 kilograms of explosives (tnt). I usually see the other version with 32 m tons listed probably all from the same original source. I wonder what type of ton it is? Often the USGS uses the system that is not metric, (what ever it is properly called). So is there any chance this is not a metric ton?

Check this out, from the USGS page they do have another calculation of energy. This is a calculation of energy magnitude (a compliment to Mw but measured in a separate way) from the broadband seismometers. 1.1*10**17 Nm ( energy in newton meters)

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/nrg/neic_slav_e.html

I based my calc on "Total amount of energy consumed in the United States in one month" "3.327 TW -- average total power consumption of the U.S. in 2001" according to Orders of magnitude (power) (although I may hacve used a different figure from a simliar source) multiply by 60x60x24x365/12 to get 7.884 * 10^18 j (or Nm) . Probably within a factor fo 10 is good enough Rich Farmbrough 21:39, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What does E = mc² have to do with this anyway? That formula is for calculating the energy of nuclear reactions by using the mass defect for m. --Zippanova 02:41, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Boats?

What happened to the boats in the area? Did it only affect boats close to the coast or also boats in the open sea? 212.144.9.85 01:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Boats near the coast would have been swept inland, and back out again if they didn't get stuck. Boats in the open ocean wouldn't have even noticed. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:26, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What depth?

The article says that the quake occurred at a depth of 30 km (18.6 mi) below mean sea level, while the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the oceans, has a maximum depth of 10,924 m (35,840 ft). -- Ducky

That's not the depth of the water over the earthquake's epicenter. It's the depth of the hypocenter below mean sea level. The hypocenter is almost always deep underground. So that 30km includes a couple of km of water, and a lot more of rock. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:48, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The depth is given here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usslav.htm

This page is often updated: the earthquake's time changed from 00:58:50 to 00:58:49 to 00:58:53; the magnitude changed from 8.1 to 8.5 to 8.9 to 9.0; and the depth changed from 10km to 30km. -- Curps 03:01, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

And the latitude and longitude used to be 3.298°N, 95.779°E but are now 3.316°N, 95.855°E... -- Curps 20:53, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

-- I do not think the USGS has a good depth yet becuase depth is poorly contrained by available seismic data. When this happens the location program will set the depth at a fixed value of something like 30 km but I think this probably is too deep. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/glossary.htm#depth

30 km is in the ballpark for a megathrust earthquake. It is the point at which the plates are locked. Any deeper and the temperature is sufficient to make the material viscous and unable to support shear stresses. I just checked -- the 1960 Chilean earthquake was at a depth of 33km and the 1964 Good Friday (Alaskan) earthquake was at a depth of 25km.

Breaking out news articles

Is anyone interested in breaking out some of this article into some smaller, more focused Wikinews articles? We could really use some articles about the effects on individual countries, the "science" of tsunamis/earthquakes, the international Bank's pledge and other funding, and so on. See Wikinews:2004_Indian_Ocean_Tsunami project page. - Amgine 02:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would be interested in contributing to an article on the "science" of tsunamis/earthquakes. I have been researching this subject as I live on top of a subducting plate and it's only a matter of time. As soon as I heard about this earthquake, I knew that it was a megathrust earthquake and that Wikipedia had no such article, so I originated it. Take a look at it and its discussion. Let me know under what name you want the article.

Alleged astrology-based prediction of earthquake by Indian scientists

User:Wikinaut added material about this alleged prediction to both this page and the Earthquake prediction page. The only mention of this comes from an article in a single Indian newspaper [3]; unless we see this mentioned in other news media it is not credible, all the more so since the alleged prediction was based on alignments of Mercury and Venus, and there is no scientific consensus that astrology can be used to predict earthquakes. There is certainly no mention on the USGS website that they received such a prediction.

Nor is there any scientific consensus that the phase of the Moon can affect earthquakes, as in your original-research moon-earthquake theory. See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/faq/myths.html#5

Therefore I reverted these additions. -- Curps 04:05, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well done! —Cantus…☎ 05:37, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Quite apart from skepticism at the methodology used in this alleged prediction, we need proof that this alleged prediction was actually made before the event, and not after. If there is no credible evidence of a prediction, then on this grounds alone, entirely unsubstantiated information (about a prediction having taken place) cannot be added to Wikipedia. They claim to have sent their prediction to USGS, NASA, etc. However, no one is saying they received any such prediction. Reputable news media in India (eg Times of India) also are not reporting any story about a prediction. -- Curps 08:39, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It should be noted that this was the third time User:Wikinaut attempted to insert content on this topic. He has been reverted each time. The brief news article from a Chennai paper on the this theory says that the research team was led by a PhD student, substantially reducing its credibility. BanyanTree 08:49, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd also be interested in seeing exactly what was contained in the "prediction". A trivial way to "predict" events like this is to publish a huge list of potential dates and locations. If one of them happens to occur, you can then trumpet the value of your predictive theory to the press. Having not seen the actual research report in question, I can't say that is what is happening here, but it certainly seems possible. - Jpo 16:08, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps seismology would be an appropriate page to discuss the astronomic (not astrology) of these theories, which do have some creedence based on widely-accepted theory of gravitational force (i.e. the moon DOES affect tides.) It does not, howver, seem at all appropriate in the context of this article. -- Zosodada

"seismic bombing" as alleged trigger of earthquakes

Someone added a section about beached whales and a possible connection with sonic bombing or seismic bombing in oil exploration as a possible trigger for the 8.1 magnitude Macquarie Island earthquake three days prior to the Indian Ocean earthquake.

It has since been reverted, and I think rightly so. According to the USGS, even nuclear tests and huge amounts of explosives do not trigger earthquakes. [4] -- Curps 04:18, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Quake characteristics: tsunami

I think it would be interesting to add a subsection of 'quake characteristics' entitled 'tsunami', since the tsunamis were the natural event having the most impact throughout the edges of the Indian Ocean (no disrespect for Mr. Quake indended, apologies). Don't quite know where to begin, though.

But it might be interesting to note the tsunami's speed, acceleration (I've heard mentions of 'faster the further away from the epicenter,' is this true?), average and progressive height, energy displacement,etc... --Lemi4 04:58, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

- the wave will accelerate if it travels from a shallow area to a deeper area, and this is also reflected by the equation.

This sounds like a good idea, but I would create a separate Tsunami characteristics section, small at first. I might go ahead and do this. -- Curps 06:19, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Try to make sure general discussion of tsunami goes in tsunami. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes. We should discuss the unique aspects of this tsunami. The complete 1 MB animation really shows how Somalia got hit harder than Madagascar, how Bangladesh hardly got hit, how Kerala on the western coast of India got hit despite being on the opposite side of the land mass, how multiple waves struck the various coasts after the first wave, etc. -- Curps 08:41, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The evolving tsunami characteristics section is quite nice already - thanks for your work, Curps. - Jpo 16:13, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Colin Powell is going to the region

Somebody write about Colin Powell and Jeb Bush going to the area. Colin Powell only has two weeks left to go in his job, will he be motivated.

- comment -

i think this would be good especially in the Humanitarian and Reconstruction Aid Aftermath section or page. Perhaps details of the naval group making its way to Sumatra would also be good. i understand the carrier will plug itself to the island and pump in electricity and water from its nuclear power plants and water purification plants. That would make quite a story if it happens. i suppose those on board can update ?

Total Land Area of Disaster

I would like to know the estimated land area across the Indian Ocean coastal areas of the tsunami disaster, so as people can compare the scale of the damage as a comparison to a country. This would give instant comprehension of the scale of devastation, compared to other large weather related disasters. David Forward.

If I had info about the affected areas I would try mapping it right away. Maybe we could start collecting such data about affected regions? I guess having access to recent satelite images would help.

- Henk Poley 15:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

After seeing the devastated towns on television news, it makes me wonder how could it be compared to say, how many towns in the UK if flattened would equal the damage done by the tsunami. It is so difficult to absorb the sheer scale of what has happened. If there were more comparisons then may be governments and red tape would make a more speedy response to enable recovery, and relief to get to where it is needed right now and not in months to come. David Forward.

Hey Wiki Editors

Yesterday, I tried to give you the latest casualty updates from Indonesia (from their official local newspapers, Tempo and TempoInteraktif (online version)) and Thailand (from 2Bangkok.com, which happened to provide official casualties report in English) since it is difficult to get actual official reports from credible sources like AP, CNN, Reuters, etc. But, you had reverted the page to previous version for some unknown reasons. I know you have problems understanding Thai and Indonesian language, so I gave my helping hands to update the casualty report data. After this, just get the official Thailand casualty data from this link:

http://2bangkok.com/quakes.shtml

It's possible your edits were reverted as a result of vandalism or inadvertently lost a side effect of reverting vandalism. If you believe your modifications were valid, you can try them again. -- Curps 09:04, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, we had some messy revert operations against the vandals yesterday. We appreciate your help very much. Please try to update the figures again. Thank you very much. Everyone who helps IS an editor! Please feel free to edit. There are many rewording and cleanup going on on this article too. We need every helping hand we can get. --Godric 14:47, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

I notice some of the source citations are links to subscription-only services (e.g., New York Times); in keeping with free content directive I think links should be updated to free, non commercial media. --

A Casualties of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake page

At some point, maybe when the dust settles a bit more, I think we should take the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake#Damage and casualties section (except the intro) and join it to Other countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and rename the whole thing Casualties of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

That way, all the casualties and death figures get reunited in one article, which would have a more sensible name as well.

A poll would need to be taken before doing so, of course.

-- Curps 09:07, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is another reason for this: it now seems that there may be up to 5000 foreign tourists (mostly Scandinavians and Germans) dead at Khao Lak and other places. [5] Sweden will probably come in 5th place in the ranking of number of citizens lost, so it no longer makes sense to separate out local-resident casualties and tourist casualties. -- Curps 10:49, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One thing against this might be the danger of doubling-up with the figures. If there are, say 5000 dead in country X of whom 300 are tourists from country Y it would be very easy to accidentally list that as 5000 X dead and 300 Y dead. On a related note is it worth mentioning well-known people who were known to be in the affected areas but who escaped? I note that foreign nationals like Helmut Kohl are mentioned, but not residents like Arthur C. Clarke (who is OK but lost boats connected with his diving work) or cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan (who left Galle just 20 minutes before the waves arrived). Grutness|^hello?

13:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Grutness here, there's no way people will make a clean report by nationality; we'll end up with adding those tourists in twice. Leave it as it is now; don't fix what isn't broken, and compile a final list in a few weeks when we have better numbers. -- Nils 15:21, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok, but how about simply the idea of putting all the casualties of all kinds into an article named Casualties of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, created by merging 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake#Damage and casualties and Other countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake ? I think this is the eventual logical organization, once the hectic period of rapid updates has passed, maybe in a couple of weeks. What do you think? -- Curps 20:50, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My personal opinion... once things have calmed down.... have the table with the final official tally on the main article and then link to a sub-article that has the textual description of the individual countries etc. That may work. We'll see... For now, I really think things are fine. -- Nils 21:43, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One way this might work in a final article structure, off the top of my head, is below. I'd like to eventually see a focused medium-sized article with numerous break-out pages, rather than a superlong article with just a couple side pages.

Intro

Scientific description (with main page link)

Casualties (link)

Relief efforts (link)

Economic impact and reconstruction (link)

Historical context

Links

What do you think? BanyanTree 22:41, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That sounds more or less right, except maybe "economic impact" could stay with the main article. I don't know if there would be enough detail to put here, it doesn't seem practical to list infrastructure in detail. -- Curps 23:59, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Conflicting priorities (was "Bodies of those killed by trauma are not dangerous)"

As the person who originally added the section now headed "Conflicting priorities", I would propose to delete it in the middle of January 2005. My purpose in adding the section was to have some chance of it being seen by those organising relief, and affecting immediate outcomes. In the longer viewpoint of an entry in a permanent reference work, I agree with those who have said it is off-topic for the 2004 earthquake. So, if you feel the entry shouldn't eventually be removed, please speak up in the discussion. I have added a separate article under the more appropriate heading "Dead bodies and health risks".213.208.107.91 12:10, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Reverting of intro

The Cunctator rewrote the intro (diff) and i reverted his changes, and here's why:

Always say what something is before getting into more detail, it's good to know that it was an undersea megathrust earthquake and how big it was before getting into more detail.

"The tsunamis struck without warning", well that can be debated, there was a pretty significant semi-warning which was an earhquake on the scale of nine, it could be argued that there was a warning, but nobody heeded it. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:56, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)

Situation in Myanmar/Burma

Anyone have any information on the situation in Myanmar? There has been almost no coverage in the mainstream press, and the Wiki information here has been relatively static for several days. Judging from the tsunami simulation animations, and from the general geography of the region, it looks like the southern portion (the Tanintharyi and Mon regions) may have seen effects that were similar to those in southern Thailand. - Jpo 16:31, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Burma situation has been discussed at least in two blogs: Worldchanging and Commandpost (sorry for incomplete links - doing this over GPRS and it's not free). The latter quotes some evidence about entire villages destroyed. I added a note about the geographical similarity of the Thailand and Burma situations day or two ago, but apparently somebody did not like it. It the wave reconstructions Burma seems at least as badly affected as Thailand is. - Scellus 21:00 UTC

Please cite "wave reconstruction" source. As Myanmar is not as populated and developed as Thailand damage cannot be reasonably equated.

This sentence has been deleted 6 times by various users.

The wave models I was referring to (and probably Scellus also) are the two animations that are currently displayed as illustrations on the main article. At least one of these comes from NOAA, which I consider to be a reputable source. Both of these animations seem to indicate substantial impact on Myanmar. Of course the actual impact will depend heavily on population density and local geography. Certainly Myanmar doesn't have the tourism development that southern Thailand does. But it still seems likely that the toll there will greatly exceed 90. - Jpo 21:56, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to the animations on the main page. As they come from a reputable source and explain well the pattern of destruction elsewhere, even up to Somalia, I would trust to them also with respect to Burma. The page currently comments both 'coastal effects' (which I meant to mean physical effects), and speculates about deaths. It is true that the number of deaths also depends on demography and other factors. Commenting deaths is more speculative and politically sensitive than just commenting the wave. --Scellus 22:42, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I included a modest sentence about the Thailand analogue in the Myanmar/Burma section. --Scellus 23:29, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering about this too. Thanks for the links. It's obvious from the geography that Myanmar/Burma would have been affected in the same way that the coast of Thailand was. Antandrus 23:35, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

At the beginning of the crisis, it was said that the Myanmar government should not be expected to be forthcoming with information. If they're not talking, and there's plenty else for the mainstream media to report, that would explain the lack of coverage and data. Tverbeek 23:48, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If one studies the animation in question it becomes apparent that the blue line fades away slightly before the coast of Myanmar. Perhaps this is more apparent in the larger images. Information from a collective of unbiased NGO's in Myanmar came in last night and should supercede speculations based on detail-lacking animations. The tapered depth and island riddled coast of Myanmar is often more like swamp than sandy beach. -- Zosodada

Announcement

I live in Bangkok,Thailand and I have been going around hospitals in the past two days to help where I can. I have seen people totally destroyed listened to people whom miss family members and friends. Tomorrow (Jan 1st) I will be going to Phuket and Krabi to help somebody find a familymember as I speak the language and now the country, I am also taking pictures with me of familymembers of people I have visited in hospitals.

I am doing a small part to help. I want to ask the community in the English wikipedia to help a littlebit also. In the Dutch wikipedia we have put an announcement on all pages with a banner pointing towards a page where you can find details to donate money. Can the English wikipedia please do the same and help this littlebit also. We are building an encyclopedia. But this is a disaster that hit everybody ..... so please help out the relief effort by doing this. Waerth 18:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, we have a page for this at Donations for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which is linked to at the top of the main article page. -- Curps 20:44, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tsunami inclusive?

Good article. But should the title of the article be maybe "2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and tsunami disaster" and something like that? The tsunami is an important feature and ought to be mentioned. Mandel 20:16, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

First of all earthquake should not be capitalised, second, the title is fine, this article discusses the earthquake and its conseuquences which include a tsunami. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:28, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)

Third, everything's too active to be moving pages around willy-nilly. See the #Name? discussion that's one of the earlier topics on the page. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:24, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Awa, Japan Tsunami

In the 'Casualties in historical context' section the 1782 South China sea tsunami is said to have been the previous most destructive tsunami, with 40,000 dead. However Google turns up a 1703 tsunami in Awa, Japan (generated by an earthquake in Genroku, apparently) that some sources claim killed 100,000 people, see for instance [6]. Can someone confirm this? Terry 20:38, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yep.] Dan100 09:40, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

It is an internet rumor...A tsunami did occur in Japan in 1703, but its death toll was an order of magnitude smaller. I have checked with my colleagues in the tsunami community and the consensus is that the event cited is a tsunami that occurred as a result of the 1703 Genroku (Kanto) earthquake. Watanabe (1) lists the fatalities at 10,000. Other sources such as the U. S. National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) (2) list 5233 deaths. As is usual with historical data, the numbers differ depending on the source, but all these numbers are all well below the 100,000 mark. It is possible that the 100,000 number resulted from a misprint of the Watanabe statistic of 10,000 deaths. The fictitious Awa event was cited both in Britannica Online and the 2004 Britannica Reference Suite DVD, but after we contacted them, they have since corrected their article on tsunamis (3) and list Krakatoa as the tsunami with the second most fatalities. The article in Wikipedia’s online website has also been corrected. Other more disastrous tsunamis include South China Sea 1782 (40,000 dead) 2, Krakatau 1883 (36,500 dead) 2 and Nankaido 1498 (31,201 dead) 2. Even higher death tolls are associated with other events such as the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the ca 1400 B.C. eruption of Santorini, but in these cases it is difficult to find accurate numbers for strictly tsunami related fatalities.

After the 2004 Sumatra tsunami, much interest was generated in “what was the second most disastrous tsunami in history?” I have seen a proliferation on the web of erroneous references to the “Awa tsunami” and am making an effort to set the record straight. For people looking for verified data in past tsunamis tso good references are

The NGDC [7] and the tsunami lab at Novosibirsk [8]

References for the above discussion: 1. Watanabe, H., 1998, “Nihon higai tsunami so_ran, dai ni-han “ (Comprehensive list of destructive tsunamis to hit the Japanese islands, 2nd edition): Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 238 p. [in Japanese]. 2. U. S. National Geophysical Data Center tsunami database http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/tsevsrch_idb.shtml 3. "tsunami." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. 2 Aug. 2005 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9073633>. CMP CMPCossack 03:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

400,000 dead in Indonesia

Is there any other confirmation of Indonesian authorities speaking of 400,000 (four hundred thousand) dead than [9]? This number seems incredibly high. --EBB 21:54, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also here: http://www.command-post.org/nk/2_archives/018349.html -- Curps 22:02, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Google "Rusdihardjo" at Google News. Malaysia Star is also reporting it. -- Curps 22:05, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Couldn't (Can't) just believe it. --EBB 22:11, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Other news media are so far not reporting on this 400,000 figure. Although any comment by Indonesis's ambassador to Malaysia is in itself newsworthy, this may have simply been a case of a government official with presumably no scientific or disaster expertise wildly speculating out loud. At least we can hope so. -- Curps 09:26, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The 400,000 figure is starting to show up in other media today. All accounts seem to come from the same source (a comment made by Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia). I feel that this figure does not deserve placement in the lead paragraph of the article, where it currently resides, unless it is confirmed by something more substantial than a single comment of one individual. - Jpo 19:29, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. -- Curps 20:13, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Displaced Total"...

Shouldn't all the totals reflect the sum of all the cells in the column? It doesn't make sense to have (for example): 2, 1, 1, 4, 6, Total: 5,000. It would make a lot more sense, at least to me, to have the total be: 14 (in the case of my example) Comrade Tassadar 22:13, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That would certainly be more logical, but sometimes we get reports giving overall totals without the supporting data, and it seems appropriate to list that (with the appropriate citation). Tverbeek 00:11, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I gave up with Injured and Displaced columns, as there are few numbers reported and it's pretty much guesswork... -- Nils 11:17, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Tsunami - more info requested

IF we can find out, a timetable of when the waves hit where, how high, how fast and how far inland. Also anything else of genreal interest, like features of the backwash, the distance the sea retreted beforehand etc.. Rich Farmbrough 00:21, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Earthquake template

A lot of articles (particularly geographical areas) seem to be linking to this page, all with slightly different formats, names. Perhaps a template could be created which enables other pages to link to this one with a consistent format. compare (as an example) earthquake links on Galle and Sri Lanka. Possibly something like this:

The following sentences could then go on to talk about the local effects.

Please see the TfD notice at the bottom of the page. -Splash 19:28, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

article mentioned on MSNBC today

Wikipedia, and this article ("the article about the indian ocean earthquake") was mentioned several times by a guest on MSNBC today. The guest said that the article is an excellent starting point for those seeking more information. Keep up the awesome work guys! Jawed 08:40, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should each country get its own page?

Rather than having large sections in an already very long article, shouldn't the material on each country affected now be spun out to individual pages? I suggest retaining a brief overview in this article followed by a link to the more detailed country article. Dan100 09:43, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I completely agree. Short sections on significant countries on the main page - with in depth articles on each on seperate pages. --Oldak Quill 20:20, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Unless anyone objects, I shall begin work on this tomorrow morning (UTC). Dan100 23:20, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

I objected such a move when Bobchalk was splitting the main page. But as it seems now this is a necessary thing to do. Just don't forget categorizing the pages--Dunord 23:46, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC).

Done, removing 16Kb from the page. Dan100 16:45, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the country-specific info on the Humanitarian response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake to the relevant country pages and made links. It's probably better for all country info to be in one place. BanyanTree 23:37, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good work, everyone. Dan100 09:48, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I've just fixed links to new affected countries pages in Other_countries_affected_by_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake article.

Speed of the Indo-Australian plate

The speed of the Indo-Australian plate is listed in the article as "6 cm/yr (2 in/yr)". The next parenthetical statement is "(or 15 m (50 ft) per 300 years; i.e. this earthquake moved this fault 300 years worth)". This equivalence is valid only if you use Imperial units. If you use metric units, you'll end up with 250 years instead of 300 years. That's a large error. If we change the plate speed to "5 cm/yr (2 in/yr)", then we have figures of 300 years for both Imperial and metric. I searched the web for the speed of the Indo-Australian plate, and I got answers ranging from 3 to 7 cm/yr, so changing 6 cm/yr to 5 cm/yr seemed justifiable to me. If you have reason to favor 6 over 5, please update the "2 in/yr" to a closer approximation, recompute the "15 m in X years" part, and post a link to an appropriate reference to the Talk page. I'm changing it from 6 to 5 for now. Thanks. --128.46.143.159 10:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The USGS figure is 6 cm/yr. This equals 2 in/yr (2.36). I have changed 300 years to 250. Dan100 13:46, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
The main problem is the 18% difference between 2 in and 2.36 in. Six cm is almost 2 1/2 in and should have been described as such. Grutness|^hello?

The slip figures were out-of-date too. I have now updated the lot to latest USGS information. Dan100 14:01, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the reference. I couldn't decide which website to believe, especially because many of them were geology departments at various universities and most of them gave different values for the speed. Now it's all cleared up.--Brhaspati 14:46, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

Do they actually know when the last subduction zone quake was or are you basing this on an average of 300 years between subduction zones quakes that happen worldwide. It usually is determined by the speed of the plates, and 300 to 500 is the average for cascadia quakes but I have never heard a term for the fault specific to this article and I thought their plate converges alot faster.

It's simply an example of how far the plate moved as a result of the earthquake compared to the normal tectonic motion. Dan100 15:36, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

-- You did not get my point, I am asking this because do they really know how far it slipped. We know when the last cascadia quake was and the average rate of ocean plate growth so if there was a cascadia quake today we could estimate how far it slipped. Do they know this yet for the Indain quake?

-- Yesterday, I rewrote the paragraph this discussion refers to, after the first sentence, because I wasn't sure what was being said. For the same reason, I took out the end of the first sentence about the fault moving but I see it's back in. I couldn't help but feel that maybe there is confusion between an earthquake where the slip is in a verticle plane and a megathrust earthquake where the slip is inclined but more or less in a horizontal plane. However, I really wasn't sure. As you notice I didn't mention plates. The problem is in how words are being used. One doesn't know how one is to interpret them. The India plate is slowly creeping northwest earthquake or no earthquake. As the India plate subducts the Burma plate and becomes locked with the Burma plate, the two plates locally compress each other at their common boundary. The bulk of the India plate continues its constant northwest creep. Ultimately the compressive stress reaches a point where the plates can no longer remain locked and they both spring forward in opposite directions. The other problem is what does the word fault mean. In an verticle plane earthquake the plates move along a fault but in a megathrust or horizontal plane earthquake the plates move perpendicular to the fault if by fault one means the line along which the plates were locked. I guess one is trying to say that the old fault line moves 300 years worth with the India plate but this would be confusing to someone thinking in terms of the normal idea of a fault. By the way that's a real nice USGS map that someone put out there. I blew it up and printed it out in color. It's very nice to refer to. It shows the Sunda Trench where the subduction starts. If one draws an arc from the epicenter through the aftershocks, one can see where the plates were locked (the so called fault line). Also one can draw an arc through the little yellow triangles and see the volcanic arc, the place where the India plate has been reduced to magma.

-- What type of plates were involved with this earthquake? Was it the conventional subduction zone quake with an ocean plate and lighter continental crust? If so this is usually described something like, when there is a subduction zone quake the entire ocean plate growth since the last subduction quake is allowed to slide underneath the continental crust. --

The plates moved in two planes - both horizontally and also vertically (causing the tsunami). See the USGS site for more. BTW, it's always a good idea to sign your comments with ~~~~, then we can see who was saying what, and when! Dan100 09:54, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Sunda Islands

Which of the Sunda Islands have been affected? ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 11:01, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sumatra (and smaller offshore islands to its west, such as Simeulue and Nias) was the only one of the Sunda Islands to suffer major effects. Java and islands further east did not have major damage. - Jpo 19:21, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:2004Earthquake

Template:2004Earthquake has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:2004Earthquake. Thank you.