THE 2004 INDIAN OCEAN TSUNAMI: HISTORICAL TSUNAMI, FIELD SURVEY, NUMERICAL SIMULATION, RISK ASSESSMENT, AND THEIR MITIGATION

An extremely disastrous earthquake has occurred on December 26th, 2004, at 00:58:49 AM (UTC) or 07:58:49 local time. The earthquake magnitude was M=9.0 (USGS) at hypocenter depth of 10 km beneath the seabed (USGS-NEIC). The epicenter of the earthquake is 3.316° N, 95.854°E, about 149 km south of Meulaboh city and 250 km south of Banda Aceh city, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. The earthquake generated huge tsunami and attacked coastal area along the South and South East Asia and reached the Eastern Part of Africa. Tsunamis also occurred on the coasts of Cocos Island, Kenya, Mauritius, and Reunion.

The earthquake with tsunami killed at least 148,873 people lost their lives and 142,123 thousands were missing, and 31,907 thousands people injured (WHO), amount of them, at least 228,948 people deaths and missing in Indonesia. The earthquake and tsunami has caused many buildings, infrastructures, and lifelines completely collapsed and destroyed. Many buildings and thousands of residential housings were severely damaged. Many roads and embankments were damaged due to tsunami. It is extremely essential to prevent or minimize such buildings and infrastructures damage of caused by potential future tsunami through tsunami hazard and vulnerability assessments.

This paper describes historical tsunami data in Indonesia, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami hazard by numerical simulations and their impact on the Banda Aceh city and the western part of Sumatra as results from field survey, concept of risk assessment and their mitigation for rehabilitation and reconstruction, concept of the tsunami early warning system (TEWS) and potential tsunami in the next future around Sumatra.