:: Killer Waves ::

Topography

Caption: Tsunami and Topography
Copyright: Our team

Before a natural disaster, animals get a warning -- what some scientists think of as a "sixth sense." But even this is not enough to stop millions of wildlife from being killed. The delicate ecosystem is disturbed when a tsunami strikes, destroying habitats and their inhabitants, including people. We know there are more bodies than what we have found.

One of the biggest natural disasters in world history, the Dec 26, 2004 tsunami killed an estimated total of 288,608 people, with 125,000 reported missing, and 4,000 injuries. 220,000 casualties were suffered in Indonesia alone. This tsunami is the deadliest one ever. The most deadly one before the tsunami of 2004 was the one in 1703 that killed an estimate of 100,000. The tsunami has also damaged coral reefs, forests, mangroves, ecosystems, wetlands, vegetation, sand dunes, and rock formations. One of the greatest damages caused by the tsunami is the salt water contaminating the fresh water supply. Sewage and garbage plants were destroyed, causing contamination and pollution. Another problem caused by the tsunami is that many fish have been killed, so fish are scarce in many areas. They sensed the tsunami coming and went away from it, towards land. The fish were swept onto the land by the tsunami, some were stuck in trees, and some people even claim there have been sharks in their swimming pools! Some suggest suspending fishing until the ecosystem returns to normal. But we have not found many land animal bodies, so the effect to the wildlife is limited. In some satellite photos, some communities have had their land area greatly reduced, while some towns have just disappeared off the map! The results have been devastating to the community and the environment.

Banda Aceh Before	Gleebruk Before	Meluaboh Before	Sri Lanka Before
Banda Aceh After	Gleebruk After	Meluaboh After	Sri Lanka After
Credit: Digitalglobe

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Credits

Credits: Online

Credits: Books

Apocalypse: a Natural History of Global Disasters by Bill McGuire (Cassell, London, 1999).

Credits: Interactions

Ideas for team-generated interactions were conceived by reading articles from NASA and also from Creative Adventures activities.

Credits: Individuals

Ms. Irivinti for teaching us how to use Dreamweaver for our web design, Photoshop and Fireworks for graphics as well as animating our logo. She taught us how to create different background (fading) effects, how to pick appropriate colors, and how to generate theme specific images, spacers etc. She also assisted us with all programming aspects of our website.
Mrs. Cataldo, Ms. Irivinti and our parents for guiding us with research and content development. It was difficult to find information we needed in one place and their assistance helped us a lot in this regard.
Mrs. Cataldo and Ms. Irivinti for reviewing and editing what we wrote. They told us when our writing needed more work and also taught us how to cite sources, obtain permission for images that we borrowed from other websites and also the proper way to credit them.

Related Interactions on Impact: Topography

Vocabulary on Impact: Topography