2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

Date: December 26, 2004 • Location: Kabupaten Simeulue, Indonesia

A major earthquake and tsunami devastated communities around the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated 227,898 people in 14 countries.

On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7), a Mw 9.2–9.3 earthquake struck with its epicenter off the west coast of Aceh, in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, was caused by a rupture along the fault boundary between the Burma plate and the Indian plate, and reached a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX in some areas.