The great earthquake of December 26, 2004 was extremely damaging and resulted in many deaths. However, most of the destruction and deaths were caused by the catastrophic tsunami waves it generated. Massive tsunami waves wiped out entire coastal areas across southeastern Asia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Myanmar and islands in the Andaman Sea and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

DEATH TOLL

The tsunami waves caused considerable destruction and killed people more than 2,000 kilometers away, in the Seychelles and in Somalia . As of February 10, 2005, the global death toll has been raised to 226,566 and continues to rise. The demographics in this part of the world are not very good. There are many remote islands in the Nicobar, Andaman, Maldives and off the African coasts, so there are many unreported deaths.