The Deadliest Tsunami Set Off Work to Be Ready for the Next Big Wave

The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, one of the deadliest events in recorded history, was an enigma to many survivors.

- KATRINA MILLER

The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, one of the deadliest events in recorded history, was an enigma to many survivors. Some experts were surprised to learn that a significant number of the people in the path of those lethal waves had never heard of such a destructive phenomenon until it came their way.

"Tsunami is a Japanese word," said Syamsidik, an engineer who now directs the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and, like many Indonesians, uses only one name. At the time, he assumed that meant that only Japan needed to worry about the natural disaster. "It misled a lot of people. Including me."

That changed the day after Christmas in 2004, when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra set off a mammoth wave that was recorded as high as 16 stories, and in some places as fast as 300 miles per hour, as it raced toward the shorelines of South and Southeast Asia and East Africa.