Talk:2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami/Archive 8

Add Change to Earth's Rotation to Other Impacts
"The earthquake shortened the length of days by 6.8 microseconds." Reference:  —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlphaBobRI (talk • contribs) 19:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Congrats
Congrats to all the editors. The article is featured now.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC) well done to all of the editors you have done this brilliantly

Power Released
Would someone please delete all those insanely wrong megaton figures in the article?! A big earthquake releases A LOT more energy than any atomic bomb ever exploded. The article is about three orders of magnitude wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.1.105.31 (talk) 16:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I dunno, it seems to be explained below. It of course released vastly more energy than any atomic bomb; it seems to be just the surface energy that was ~equivalent to Tsar Bomba. --Golbez (talk) 16:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"This is equivalent to over 930 terawatt hours, 0.8 gigatons of TNT, or about as much energy as is used in the United States in 11 days." kate was here >>09<<

Two points;


 * This struck me as not much, especially as it later says of the Tsunami wave, which was the equivalent of 5 megatons of TNT; "This is more than twice the total explosive energy used during all of World War II", and yet is a couple of orders of magnitude less than the the power of the actual earthquake (at 0.8gigatons of TNT, or 800,000 megatons). The U.S uses 400,000 times the energy released by all the explosives in WW2 every 11 days? Incredible if correct.


 * By my own (quite possibly wrong) calcuations, according to the CIA world factbook, the US uses 3,656,000,000,000,000 Watt-hours of electricity a year, or 3,656 terrawatt hours a year. 930TW = 25.4% of that, which would be 93 days of electricity, not 11. Iorek85 01:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, the article states the energy released by the earthquake as 1.1*10^18 Joules. However, the USGS gives 1.1*10^17 Joules on its website (http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2004/eq_041226/neic_slav_e.html).

I don't think that the quake figures sound accurate. Ususally the power levels involved in acts of nature are quite beyond what we are used to like hurricanes containing the power equivalent of an h-bomb going off every few hours (pulling that figure from memory.) The quake figures just seem very small. --Gmuir 19:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Recalculated based on USGS data
Gmuir and lorek85 are Totally right. Figures here are way wrong. See Richter magnitude scale, which lists the Indian Ocean quake at 32 gigatons, not 0.8. Also, the Tsar Bomba is listed as richter 5.25 on its page, but on the richter page as 7.0, a difference of 150 times in energy. These discrepancies need to be fixed. Ok, found the TNT equivalent page.

Richter magnitude scale page table figures are clearly wrong too, and inconsistent. Every scale up is 32 times energy, so impossible for 9.0 to be only 5.6 times that of 8.0, and 8.0 to be 20 times that of 7.0.

Taken from Measuring the Size of an Earthquake, Natn Earthquake Info Ctr, USGS:

Because fault geometry and observer azimuth are a part of the computation, '''moment is a more consistent measure of earthquake size than is magnitude, and more importantly, moment does not have an intrinsic upper bound. These factors have led to the definition of a new magnitude scale MW, based on seismic moment, where

MW = 2/3 log10(MO) - 10.7 .'''

The two largest reported moments are 2.5 X 1030 dyn·cm (dyne·centimeters) for the 1960 Chile earthquake (MS 8.5; MW 9.6) and 7.5 X 1029 dyn·cm for the 1964 Alaska earthquake (MS 8.3; MW 9.2). MS approaches it maximum value at a moment between 1028 and 1029 dyn·cm. (MW=4.0 x 10 ^ 29 for Sumatra, see Harvard Moment Tensor Solution.

so what is energy?

Energy, E

The amount of energy radiated by an earthquake is a measure of the potential for damage to man-made structures. A magnitude based on energy radiated by an earthquake, Me, can now be defined,

Me = 2/3 log10E - 2.9.

For every increase in magnitude by 1 unit, the associated seismic energy increases by about 32 times.

'''Although Mw and Me are both magnitudes, they describe different physical properites of the earthquake. Mw, computed from low-frequency seismic data, is a measure of the area ruptured by an earthquake. Me, computed from high frequency seismic data, is a measure of seismic potential for damage. Consequently, Mw and Me often do not have the same numerical value.''' ---

and from USGS Fast Moment Tensor Solution top of page:

'''Because of the size (M 9.0) of this earthquake, point-source methods that use only the body-wave portion of the seismogram are inadequate for measuring the true magnitude.'''

So this just tells me the energy figure (E) given by Gmuir on his USGS link (1.1*10^17 J) is incorrect for "total energy release", but is correct for "surface rupture damage". Basically, from USGS again, [How much bigger is a 8.7 than a 5.8 quake?] Using the methods of 32 per 1.0 Richter step from that page, and the revised Indian Ocean Quake 9.3 richter figure, and using quote from an USGS explanation page Richter Scale:

"A magnitude just above 8 represents about as much energy as produced by 200 one megaton nuclear bombs."

So, a 9.3 like Indian Ocean Quake is R1.0 * R0.3 * 200 megatons TNT = 32 * (1.414*2) * 200 megatons TNT = 18.1 gigatons of TNT.

AND...200 Mt/50mt = 4 or R0.4 as 2^5 =32 so every R0.2 is an increase/decreases by a factor of 2. So Tsar Bomba's 50 mt = 7.6 Richter. The people calculating that bomb either used the wrong magnitude scale or only accounted for surface vibration was it was detonated 4000 m ground, or a combo of both.

Based on this and standardized TNT equivalencies (4.184**18 J per gigaton, from TNT equivalent page), gives 7.57**19 J release by this quake. Assuming Hiroshima was 17 kt, that gives 1,064,700 times the power of Hiroshima, and 362 times that of Tsar Bomba. This figure makes the earth truly ring like a bell, like the scientists said, which is why geoscientists were so stunned. Furthermore, Energy use in the United States wikipedia page claims that the US uses 105 exajoules a year of all types of energy including wasted energy, or 105**18 J. So the Sumatra quake released a total equivalent of (7.57**19/1.05**20) years = 0.721 years or 263 days at 2005 energy usage.

Furthermore, the energy release for the 1964 Alaskan quake is 7.5/4*18.1 gt = 33.93 gigatons and for Chilean quake is 25/4*18.1gt = 113 gigatons. Thus the Chilean quake, the largest known, in total released nearly 6 million times more energy than that of Hiroshima. It takes a lot of energy to shove thousands of square miles of kilometers deep of rock under each other, orders of magnitude less energy damage the surface, in what we "see".

71.117.93.160 11:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Just for reference, according to the article, 2.5 megatons of energy (surface blast) did this...(Meteor Crater). Naturally, shoving 30-70 km thick, thousands of miles long gigantic oceanic plates under each other takes far more energy.

71.117.93.160 (talk) 16:49, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

wording in title
I just made a minor change in the wording of the intro, removing "lethal" as an adjetive describing the tsunamis caused by the earthquake. I felt this was an awkward way to describe a tsunami and redundant with parts of the rest of the sentence. I believe the sentence reads much better now. Does anyone disagree?

Also, you are an admin reading this, you might want to update the main page template. -- Rmrfstar 02:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What is wrong with the main page template? Pepsidrinka 02:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * He means that the word "lethal" should be removed there, too. But I think there should be an adjective there. "Lethal" or "devastating" are perhaps redundant, but we want to convey that these were extraordinary tsunami waves, certainly for the Indian Ocean. "unprecedented in modern times" might be something to slip in somewhere. "colossal" sounds a bit like a movie blurb, "massive" might be better. "overwhelming" is perhaps the best technical choice, as it derives from an Old English word for "turning upside down", and has meant "drowning" since the late Middle Ages. Anyone else like "overwhelming"?--Dhartung | Talk 02:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Finally Featured
I've been waiting for a long time to see this article featured. Anonymous _anonymous_  Have a Nice Day  11:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Awkward wording
The intro says "the number of casualties were 186,983 dead and 42,883 missing, for a total of 229,866 affected". Surely many more people were affected by the earthquake? Is there a better way to say this? Zocky | picture popups 13:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The Word "Recent"
In my view, a date should be used instead of the word "recent", as whatever is described as "recent" will in time become other than recent; the article will then require editing.
 * The article, like every article in Wikipedia, will always require editing as new information and perspectives arise. As of 2006, the fact of the earthquake being recent is a notable characteristic of the event. Peter Grey 17:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Moment/Richter Magnitude?
Not being someone who knows about these things I am a little confused as to why the link for magnitude (of 9.0) in the second paragraph refers to the 'moment magnitude scale' page, while in the same sentance it refers to it as being measured on the 'richter magnitude scale'. It seems to me these two scales are different, and I wonder why different earthquake pages seem to refer to different magnitude scales (and seem to pick one or the other). Am i missing something or is this unclear. Thanks. Miscreant 11:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * See Richter scale. The equations used to calculate Richter saturate out around 8.3-8.5, meaning that it gives similar estimates for massive earthquakes that are clearly of different sizes.  Seismologists have since used seismic moment, but the general public had gotten used to the Richter numbers so someone came up with the moment magnitude scale, which is based on seismic moment numbers but overlaps with the Richter scale for moderate sized quakes and is accurate for the really big ones (not so much for the really small ones apparently).  The Richter scale shouldn't really be used for an earthquake this size, but it sticks around because people still don't know what the moment magnitude scale is.  So it's unclear, because it's unclear... - BT 16:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Lost / Damage to vessels
Any report of damage and lost to vessels in the Indian Ocean at as a result of the tsunami? All i've seen so far are casulties on the shores. The waters of that area of the Indian Ocean should be heavy in traffic. --Kvasir 05:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Tsunamis only become tall and dangerous as they move into progressively shallower waters on a continental shelf close to shore. In the open ocean they are long, low waves which are often too subtle to feel at all despite their high speed.  Ships at sea would have been unaffected by the tsunami unless they were above  the shallow part of a long, sloping seabed.  Even ships in port at the U.S. naval base on Diego Garcia were unaffected, as that atoll rises abruptly from the ocean floor (indeed, the wave had to pass over a 16,000-foot [4,900 meter] deep canyon just before it reached the area) and does not have a shelf-like structure around it which could have driven the wave upward.


 * There was significant boat loss/damage, due to the fact that the tsunami arrived when many boats were near shore. Many fishing communities suffered large boat loss due to the fact that many of their fishing boats were still in or near harbors or the shoreline. However there was no reported damage to boats in the deep ocean, outside of shallow water.


 * Wm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kholak (talk • contribs) 16:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

All of the above regarding boat and vessel losses is correct. One way we know this is that in Banda Ache, two divers went out to do some recreational diving from the beaches there. They went down, and a few minutes later came up to find the tsunami had passed and done its damage on shore. CNN interviewed the couple, they will have the info on this in their archives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.27.203.38 (talk) 01:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Psychological Trauma?!
I don't see how traditions relate to being traumatic. There should be a better explanation. It doesn't make any sense at all. Please Someone explain. Znitrx 17:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it time to permanently semi-protect this article?
Looking at the article's edit history this month, it is noticeable that there have been 53 edits in the first 21 days this month by non logged-in editors, and at most 5 of them have not been reverted as vandalism. I wonder if it is time for us to semi-protect the article on a permanent basis, as at this time it seems unlikely that much further relevant information will be added to it, and it does not seem unreasonable to expect someone to wait the four days it takes before a new account is allowed to edit a SP'd article in order to add rare legitimate updates. As it is the article seems to be becoming a vandal magnet, which is a great pity as it's one of the standout articles on Wikipedia in my opinion. -- Arwel (talk) 23:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Should it be Indian Ocean tsunami instead of earthquake?
Lot of the North American media seemed to use the term of tsunami rather then earthquake. I was wondering if it should be better to put the term tsunami instead of earthquake as it was the tidal wave that caused all the destruction (although maybe some islands it was earthquake damage, but generally the tsunami did most of the death and destruction) So I suggest to Move it to 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami--JForget 00:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The tsunami did not happen without the earthquake, though. And in the area hardest hit - Banda Aceh - you would be hard-pressed to separate the earthquake damage from the tsunami damage. --Golbez 18:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The redirects from 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami should be enough. In order to avoid confusion in the category system, there may be a case for putting the tsunami redirects in Category:Tsunami, rather than the earthquake pages, but that then prevents people clicking at the bottom of the page from here to get to other tsunamis. Anyway, the category should be plural (Category:Tsunamis), not singular. I'll get that changed over at CFD. Carcharoth 21:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't agree with JForget that the tsunami (tidal wave is a misnomer thaa pretty much stopped getting used after this disaster) caused all the destruction - I think there was a lot of damage on Bandah Aceh from the earthquake - as well as the ensuing tsunami.  BartBart (talk) 14:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Photo of the first wave just after breaking
Hi All

I'm a newbie to wikipedia contributions so if my question is inappropriate, please excuse me.

This link shows a picture (taken at Krabi Beach, Thailand) of the first peak of the Asian tsunami just after breaking http://www.surf.co.nz/Gallery/Photo/photo.asp?categoryKey=226&imageKey=1406

I think this photo is peerless, and I want it to be available to the community in some way.

It was posted by an anonymous contributor shortly after the event. At my request the site on which it was posted (surf.co.nz) sent a message to the contributor asking them to contact me in order that I obtain permission for its use, but they never did. Consequently it cannot be made available on wiki commons.

Is it possible that a link to this photo be included in the external links?

Thanks, Gareth

is this orignal work??
i have been studying tsunamis for school and i normally go to wiki for info so i read this article, but then i found another site (http://www.important.ca/tsunami_asia_earthquake.html) which is has parts that are word for word to the wiki artcle.

does this mean it was the same author or was whoever wrote this just cutting and pasting parts into this article?


 * Your comment seems to say that you think we copied them; they copied us. They clearly state at the bottom that the source of their 'article' is Wikipedia. So there's no problem here. --Golbez 10:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * A number of websites do this - taking information from Wikipedia, as well. So there's nothing wrong with this. Insanephantom 14:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Ranking
This article is rife with contradictions. Many places rank it as the 2nd most powerful earthquake ever, while many others say it was only the "4th most powerful since 1900". Which, if either, is correct?

The first one. It was measured at 9.3 which would make it the second largest earthquake ever measured by a seismograph. Also the pie chart states that the alaska qauke was a magnitude of 9.4. Nowhere in any article has the earthquake been given this high a rating. In fact on the article list of earthquakes it states the moment magnitude as 9.2 and I've seen many places stating the magnitude as 9.2 on the richter scale.

I agee with comment above about contradictions. Look at the following paragraph "Of all the seismic moment released by earthquakes in the 100 years from 1906 through 2005, roughly one-eighth was due to the Sumatra-Andaman event. This quake, together with the Good Friday Earthquake (Alaska, 1964) and the Great Chilean Earthquake (1960), account for almost half of the total moment. The much smaller but still catastrophic 1906 San Francisco earthquake is included in the diagram at right for perspective. Mw denotes the magnitude of an earthquake on the moment magnitude scale." The following paragraph goes on to contradict this, and the accompanying piechart contradicts it too. Or is this an artefact of the difference between the Richter scale and the Moment scale? If so it would be useful to clarify this in the text. --DMWard 20:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems that contradictions are rife throughout articles about major earthquakes. Somebody, or lots of bodies will have to go through and fix things up; maybe it's time for me to start contributing.121.44.87.3 09:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Related page up for AfD
Could any regular editors of this article please comment on Library_damage_resulting_from_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake at Articles_for_deletion/Library_damage_resulting_from_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake. Thanks. Carcharoth 05:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

"Retreat and rise cycle" section of article very inaccurate
Hello,

I work for a tsunami database that collects pictures, videos, and eye-witness reports relating to the 2004 tsunami. While reading this article the section titled "Retreat and rise cycle" came to my attention. I noticed that it claims the following characteristics and behaviors of the tsunami occurred in all locations across the Indian Ocean:

"The tsunami was a succession of several waves, occurring in retreat and rise cycles with a period of over 30 minutes between each peak. The third wave was the most powerful and reached highest, occurring about an hour and a half after the first wave. Smaller tsunamis continued to occur for the rest of the day."

Sentence One

1. "The tsunami was a succession of several waves,"

1. This fact is partially true, given that in nearly all locations the tsunami struck, there were not one but rather several waves. However there is at least one beach in Malaysia were I know, as a fact, that only one noticeable wave arrived. This may or may not need changing, due to the fact that though this information is not universal, it is accurate for the vast majority of locales.

2. "occurring in retreat and rise cycles"

2. This is semi-true, given that for the very first wave, I have not heard any definitive evidence that a recession of water did not precede it. However, it is a fact that in several locales some waves after the first came without a recession of water. I recommend adding to this statement that this was the case in only some places, not all.

3. "with a period of over 30 minutes between each peak."

3. This is untrue. In nearly all locations the tsunami did not strictly or even loosely follow this pattern. There is one island in Thailand, for example, where a home video documents tsunami waves arriving, retreating, and then arriving again in intervals of one to two minutes, not 30 to 40 minutes. It is also a fact that several locations experienced wave intervals longer than 30 to 40 minutes, and that some locales did not experience any repeating intervals at all, rather waves arrived spontaneously throughout the day. My personal view is that this information should be erased or at least altered to fit the general gist of what occurred on December 26th.

Sentence Two

4. "The third wave was the most powerful and reached the highest,"

4. This is very inaccurate. In most locales, the third wave was not nearly the highest. In many locations, including Banda Aceh, Indonesia the second wave or wave train was by far the higher, and in Khao Lak, Thailand the first wave was the highest and most powerful by far. It should be noted that in some places the third wave was the highest; however it is unfair to the article to state that this was the case on all beaches. This information should also be erased or changed to accommodate information from most locations.

5. "occurring about an hour and a half after the first wave."

5. See paragraphs 3 and 4 to see why this information is disproved.

Sentence Three

6. "Smaller tsunamis continued to occur for the rest of the week 6. I have found no information that strongly disproves this sentence, so it may be left unaltered.

Wm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kholak (talk • contribs) 16:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Broken Image
What's the deal with the broken image? That should not be happening on a featured article. It should either be replaced or deleted.ArteWorks Business Class 20:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Fraction of Length of Day
2.68 microseconds is not about 1 billionth of the length of a day. A day is approximately 24 hours = 86400 seconds = 86.4 billion microseconds, so a billionth of that would be approximately 86.4 microseconds. 2.68 microseconds is about 1.5 orders of magnitude smaller and is much closer to 1/32 billionths of a day, since 1/32 billionths of 86.4 billion microseconds is 86.4/32 microseconds = 2.7 microseconds.

So-called moment magnitude
First sentence in Earthquate characteristics: The earthquake was initially reported as moment magnitude, Mw 9.0 (note that this is not the so-called Richter scale or local magnitude scale, Ml, which is known to saturate at higher magnitudes.)

Weasel worded. - "so-called" Can someone with knowledge of the topic reword it?

Secondly, the magnitude is measured as both 9.3 in both Moment Magnitude and Richer Scale. Could someone verify which it? JameiLei 21:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It shouldn't be measured as anything in the Richter Scale, since that starts to fail to produce a proper figure at high magnitudes. Fixed. --Golbez 23:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

out of curiosity
What time was it in California when the Boxing Day Tsunami started? I'm curious about that b/c I was on vacation at the time in and near Disneyland, and I also sailed on the Dec. 26, 2004 sailing of teh "Vision of the Seas" (which was doing Mexican Riviera cruises from LA). 68.36.214.143 05:54, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It might've been 6 pm or thereabouts, let's check a clock somewhere. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 17:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Also out of curiosity, trying to keep political bias out of the article, but the section referring to "Human Component in magnitude in damage", I can see how more obstacles can break some force of the waves, but I hardly think that in relation to the size of this tsunami, neither reef or mangrove would have had much effect in preventing the damage it did. The way the section reads currently, it sounds like a political platform, rather than an informational article. Just my thoughts on the matter. I dont have a better solution to improving it. J. Kubicki Jr. 16:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joelkubickijr (talk • contribs)

I agree with the above comment. I don´t see how the following lines (or the picture of the letter) have any importance other than political to the subject. If this is to say that someone made an effort to help the people affected by the disaster then you may start to put the names of every people that was there and helped, but just marking out something that the US president does it is not significant, to keep it neutral (not US based) it will be better to either remove the line and the picture or to mention what other Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc.. made to contribute and help in other countries.

to be removed...?

On February 9, 2005, President Bush asked Congress to increase the U.S. commitment to a total of $950 million. Officials estimated that billions of dollars would be needed. Bush also asked his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and former President Bill Clinton to lead a U.S. effort to provide private aid to the tsunami victims

--Heosphoros (talk) 20:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Affected countries
I checked the list of affected countries on the table at the top of the page. Surely, more countries were affected. You're missing out on Myanmar and Somalia - these were hit by the tsunami. 202.95.200.12 07:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Boxing Day
It says "it is called the Boxing Day Tsunami in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, because it took place on Boxing Day." But Boxing day cannot fall on a Sunday, which the Tsunami did may I suggest "it is called the Boxing Day Tsunami in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, because it took place on Sunday 26th November, however boxing day was on Monday 27th." or is that a bit too wordy, what do people recommend? Sam 20-09-2007 86.149.79.112 17:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe not legally, but in common practice Boxing Day = December 26 regardless of the day of the week. -- CrazyC83 (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Boxing Day in Australia is always the 26th December.BartBart (talk) 14:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Except in South Australia where it is officially called Proclamation Day D-Ozols (talk) 10:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Stating That Boxing Day can’t fall on a Sunday is akin to stating that Christmas can’t fall on a Sunday. In fact both holidays can fall on any day of the week. If a society opts to observe a holiday on a different day in order to take advantage of a day off from work, then this doesn’t mean the holiday didn’t fall on a Sunday – it means it fell on a Sunday and people opted to observe it at a different time.

"great" Sumatran earthquake
ONNA BOYD IN 2008 BY A BUS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.109.10.90 (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi - great article. A tiny quibble: I just wanted to note that in the very first sentence it says "known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake". In truth, it is virtually *always* referred to as the "great Sumatran earthquake" or "great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake". If you want citations, merely look at the citation you've already provided - there it is. Every paper I've looked at in the literature that mentions it, has "great". I believe (but I don't have a reference for this) that all earthquakes with Mw > 9 are called "great" deliberately. I'd like to add "great" into the article for the sake of accuracy, but understand that this article has a lot of people watching over it and the likelihood of anon edits getting reverted. So how about consensus? Who objects to making the change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.98.21 (talk) 14:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No-one seems to oppose the change, so I'm making it. Sorry, forgot to add tag Foraminifera 10:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Casualty causes
I noticed there is no information on how the casualties occurred... i.e. drowning during the initial flood, being crushed by debris, succumbing while in the open sea, disease after the tsunami, starvation, etc. Have any studies been done to try to analyze the death toll in better detail? -Rolypolyman (talk) 22:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

7th or 9th Deadliest Natural Disaster
Towards the end of the first paragraph it states "This was the ninth-deadliest natural disaster in modern history"; but the link that it provides to "List of natural disasters by death toll" has it placed as the 7th most deadly. I believe that this article needs to be revised.

Dljackson (talk) 14:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Table and Death total
Who is right ? 220.135.4.212 (talk) 15:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * #Damage_and_casualties's table say 230,000 deaths (estimation)
 * #Event_in_historical_context's table say 283,000 deaths (estimation)

News coverage of 2004 tsunami
I am writing to inquire about the possible inclusion of the news coverage of the 2004 tsunami.

On December 26, 2004, the date of the tsunami, the only coverage of the tsunami in the U.S. was on The Drudge Report web site. It wasn't until four days later, on December 30, that the national news such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc. reported on the incident.

We know now it was one of the most devastating natural disasters in reoorded history, but during those four days, the major news outlets treated it as no more than some sort of storm somewhere else in the world.

-- Earthquake warning systems --

I suggest the following be added after the first paragraph under "Signs and warnings" which discusses warning systems: "Smith Dharmasaroja, a Thia meteriologist, predicted an earthquake and tsunami and advocated warning systems, but was not taken seriously." This should link to the Wikipedia article (stub) on Smith Dharmasaroja. When considering disasters, failures in mitigation are relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.70.152.75 (talk) 10:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 04:40, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Second or third deadliest?
The infobox states "2nd deadliest earthquake of all time", but the table in the "Event in historical context" section lists it third. 217.33.74.203 (talk) 12:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Error in table?
Something doesn't add up in the table in the section 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The number of confirmed casualties in Sri Lanka is higher than the estimated number. This is technically impossible, since the estimate contains both confirmed casualties and the presumed casualties. If the confirmed number of casualties is X, the estimate can never be lower than X. Aecis·(away) talk 19:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Fatality count
Is there an agreed-upon number of fatalities? And an agreed-upon margin of error? Wikipedia article estimates are between "greater than 225000" and "about 350000", though several hover in the 230000-235000 region. Dugong.is.good.tucker (talk) 16:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Fatality count by Nationality
Beyond the quoted Swedish highest death toll,there's no other computing of foreigner tourists fatalities by Nationality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.60.61.126 (talk) 14:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

i just wanted to add that in the “damage and casualties” section, it says that “The European nation hardest hit may have been Sweden”, while at the end of the “other effects” section we read that “The hardest hit country outside Asia, 543 Swedish tourists, mainly in Thailand, died.” I may safely say that any european country is “outside asia”, so you may either want to state that the hardest hit European country was sweden or that the hardest hit country outside asia may have been Sweden, either way one of the two sentences has to be corrected to reflect the other imo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.178.66.170 (talk) 20:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Link updates requested
Please change the following "before" entry to the "after" entry. The "before" links for "cgs" are being redirected.

BEFORE:
 * The December 26, 2004, Sumatra Earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami: Field Perspectives on the Impacts to the Peoples, Cultures, Politics, and Economies of One of the World's Most Vibrant Regions, Speaker: Tom Casadevall, September 26, 2006. Sponsored by Center for Global Studiesand Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

AFTER:
 * The December 26, 2004, Sumatra Earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami: Field Perspectives on the Impacts to the Peoples, Cultures, Politics, and Economies of One of the World's Most Vibrant Regions, Speaker: Tom Casadevall, September 26, 2006. Sponsored by The Center for Global Studies and Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Thanks much! Tyden Grommet (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Doing it now; thanks! --Golbez (talk) 21:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Countries/regions affected
Should we list Burma as a country affected in the box at the top of this article? One two three... 21:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request
In the table of deaths by country, the total at the bottom of the 'Confirmed Deaths' column should be 184,167, not 184,168. TimKasoar (talk) 16:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you for informing this  Ilyushka88   talk  17:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Article name
I have to believe that this has been discussed before, perhaps numerous times, but I've never been here before today, and what I can't figure out is why the title of the article features the word "earthquake" and not "tsunami". Yes, the former caused the latter, but the latter is what made the story. Just my 2¢. Un sch  ool  18:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That's true but the earthquake - (one of the largest in recorded history) was the root cause of the tsunami and educationally - produced a lesson that no one should ever forget again, especially in terms of having a warning, which is why the name is apt...Modernist (talk) 18:36, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * My general argument has been, it was the flooding of New Orleans that caused all the deaths and damage there, but we still name the article Hurricane Katrina. It was the firestorm that ultimately destroyed much of San Francisco, but we still name the article 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The tsunami did not exist without the earthquake. Furthermore, the earthquake itself probably killed thousands and thousands of people in Aceh. --Golbez (talk) 18:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Golbez is quite correct. However, it really has nothing to do with how we title articles on Wikipedia, which is determined by common useage in English prose.  The articles on Hurricane Katrina and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake are so titled because that is how people customarily refer to those events.  When talking about those events as a whole, hardly anyone refers to the 2005 New Orleans flood or 1906 San Francisco firestorm.  And, there is a separate article at 2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans, that is a redirect from 2005 New Orleans flood.  That is the difference with the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake/2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.  Skinsmoke (talk) 19:37, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Fix broken link: [47] "Girl, 10, used grography lesson to save lives".
The link given doesn't work, and redirects to the main page. It's currently footnote 47, but that cound change. The working link is http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1480192/Girl-10-used-geography-lesson-to-save-lives.html


 * ✅ Thank you for finding this. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Remove semi-protection?
Currently, only autoconfirmed editors editors have write access to this article. Do the regulars here think that the problematic edits which led to protection last year are likely to resume if semi-protection is removed? - 2/0 (cont.) 06:11, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Please request at WP:RFPP if vandalism from non-autoconfirmed users resumes. - 2/0 (cont.) 04:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, that was charming - re-enabled semi-protection. Maybe next year (or sooner if anyone would like to try it again). - 2/0 (cont.) 19:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Animals that sensed it coming
Is it confirmed that many animals started rushing uphill about half an hour before the tsunami struck? 81.129.150.171 (talk) 10:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Wrong link to Oblate, should be Oblate_spheroid
An oblate is the try round flat thing Catholics eat in the Mass, not an oblate spheroid. Please correct this link. I was not able to do this myself. Nalpdii (talk) 09:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spotting that, fixed! Mikenorton (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

can't edit, help fix
The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was the largest earthquake since 1964, and the second largest since the Kamchatka earthquake of October 16, 1737.

Totally a lie. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes#Largest_earthquakes_by_magnitude. There is no edit option for me. Please fix the lies. Thanx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.180.163.190 (talk) 14:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Indonesian Tsunami
editsemiprotected shouldn't it be called 2004 Indonesian tsunami or earthquake to indicate that this happened just off the coats of Indonesia rather than a mislading "indian ocean" which stretches all the way from Antartica to south africa to YemenJigglyfidders (talk) 15:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * First of all, what you're asking for is not an edit, it's a move, which is much larger. Second of all, while the earthquake was indeed off the coast of Sumatra, its effects were certainly widespread, affecting indeed all the way to South Africa. Had there been no tsunami, I would wager it would be called the 2004 Sumatra earthquake, or 2004 Indonesia earthquake. But because of the wide scope of the damage, it is this. I also note that on Wikipedia, we do not usually invent names; we use names already in use by others. And "Indian Ocean Earthquake" is used far, far more in media and culture than "Indonesian Earthquake." --Golbez (talk) 15:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Biggest earthquakes since 1900
Section should be updated to reflect recent earthquake in Haiti. 173.69.187.114 (talk) 04:23, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

incorrect figure
This more recent figure shows a death toll in indonesia of 220,000 making a total of 280,00 deaths. thus making it the 3rd deadliest earthquake. Could someone correct these figures please? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4204385.stm Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 07:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Welcome. The USGS provides a total of 227,898 and explains "In January 2005, the death toll was 286,000. In April 2005, Indonesia reduced its estimate for the number missing by over 50,000". Your source is from January 25, 2005. Celestra (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Maximum wave height
I've just changed the maximum wave height quoted in the lede back to 30m to be consistent with the main tsunami characteristics section and supported it with the same source. 30m certainly seems extreme but I know that the highest recorded run-up near Banda Aceh was 50.6m, which is just mind-boggling (I note that we have nothing on run-ups in the article at all). I'm going to see if I can find a better ref than the one we have now, as the work of those scientists should have made it into the literature by now. Mikenorton (talk) 19:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, the wave height study is here, with the actual recorded data here , note that they distinguish between run-ups (i.e. when the wave reached an obstacle such as a hill) versus evidence of watermarks on trees near the coast, indicating the initial wave height. The highest waves were recorded on the west coast of Banda Aceh and cluster at about 30 m. This study is not in a peer-reviewed journal, so the original ref is probably fine. Mikenorton (talk) 20:00, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Change the ranking
On the list of natural disasters it is now ranked 6th as the 2010 Haitian earthquake preceeded it. Please change the data on the page, as it still shows the now outdated value, 5th. --89.142.192.71 (talk) 20:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * In fact the 2010 Haiti earthquake article uses the figures 92,000-230,000, so there is really no difference between the two. People keep changing the death tolls in the List of earthquakes (and other lists) to 250,000 for the Haiti quake, but there does not seem to be a reliable source for this. The problem is that all death tolls are estimates, and they may be revised again in the future. We really need to get agreement on the figures in all the various list articles and individual earthquake articles - not an easy task I'm afraid. Mikenorton (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I see, the value even changed as I just reloaded the page. As there is no actual precise way to really measure the casualties for each one, I guess leaving it as it is is okay. It might be as that article is free to be edited by anyone (even I could :D). --89.142.192.71 (talk) 04:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Citation style
One way to improve this article is to use a consistent citation style. We should use cite web, cite news, and the like. Is there an easier and quicker way to do this? Can someone please do this with AWB or something else? Thanks. serioushat 10:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

move to add tsunami in title

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved.  Ron h jones (Talk) 22:31, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake → — Move article from 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake to 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami since tsunami had far more impact than earthquake itself. We will keep earthquake but add tsunami in title which is very much essential. This was moved earlier once, see here. Noted trip3 (talk) 07:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Support or just use tsunami. The naming of this article is so obtuse. The previous move discussions said that the tsunami was not the most important part of the event. It's like the assassination of the archduke in Serbia were the title of the WWI article. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 12:37, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose The tsunami was an instantaneous result of the earthquake and doesn't exist independently of it. After earthquakes there are deaths relating to things other than shaking aprt from tsunamis, such as fires, landslides, dam failures and liquefaction, but our articles are still named after the earthquakes. 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami redirects here already, as does 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, so I don't see the need. Mikenorton (talk) 14:19, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Support The events are more widely remembered, and referred, to as the Indian Ocean tsunami, not the Indian Ocean earthquake.  A quick Google search shows 371,000 hits for the former, against just 55,500 for the latter.  I understand Mikenorton's view, but Wikipedia titles articles by what is the most common useage in English prose, not by what is technically correct.  The current proposal seems like a suitable compromise, or alternatively go for 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which is what we should probably opt for if we follow Wikipedia's naming conventions correctly.  Skinsmoke (talk) 19:19, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose; my general argument has been, it was the flooding of New Orleans that caused all the deaths and damage there, but we still name the article Hurricane Katrina. It was the firestorm that ultimately destroyed much of San Francisco, but we still name the article 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The tsunami did not exist without the earthquake. As for the suggestion that 'earthquake' be removed, that's right out, as the earthquake itself killed thousands and thousands of people in Aceh. Removing 'earthquake' would be simply incorrect in that regard. Basically, if you want an article on the tsunami, you should split it. It's accurate to have the earthquake and tsunami in an article on the earthquake; it seems inaccurate to devote a large portion of an article on a tsunami to an earthquake. Does that make sense? As for the WW1 argument, that's really not worth responding to. We have an article on the assassination; we have an article on the war. Your argument is more akin to asking for a split than a rename. --Golbez (talk) 20:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment None of which is particularly relevant to how we name articles on Wikipedia.  That is determined by common useage in English prose.  Although a simple Google search is not the best way of determining titles, it can give an indication of the relative useage.  A search for Indian Ocean tsunami gives 371,000 hits; one for Indian Ocean earthquake 55,500 hits.  In the popular imagination, it is the tsunami that is foremost, not the earthquake that caused it, perhaps because the devastating effects of the tsunami were felt over a much wider area than the earthquake was felt; perhaps because it was the tsunami that killed so many westerners, rather than the earthquake (yes I know that isn't how it should be).  The proposal obviates the need to split the article by including both in the title.  Incidentally, Golbez asks It's accurate to have the earthquake and tsunami in an article on the earthquake; it seems inaccurate to devote a large portion of an article on a tsunami to an earthquake. Does that make sense?  The answer is no, it doesn't: it makes just as much sense to include the cause in an article about a tsunami, as it does to include the effect in an article about an earthquake. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The earthquake caused the tsunami; it makes perfect sense to go into detail about the tsunami in the earthquake article. The tsunami did not cause the earthquake; it seems odd to me to go into detail on the earthquake in an article on the tsunami. A possible example: The article on Hurricane Katrina goes into the flooding caused by the storm damaging the levees, but the article on the flooding caused by the levees being damaged does not really deal with the storm. A caused B, and A's article should deal with B, but B usually doesn't deal with A. (Note that this doesn't apply when the originating incident isn't otherwise noteworthy. A small storm that causes a landslide that kills 500 people would be rightly dealt with in an article on the landslide, rather than "2010 landslide-causing storm", since the storm was virtually incidental. I think many thousands of dead people in Aceh would disagree that the earthquake was merely incidental. Am I being pedantic? Quite possibly, I admit it. :P)
 * As for Google, I note that it has more results for "Boxing Day earthquake" than "Boxing Day tsunami", so there's clearly not a total agreement as for "tsunami" being in greater usage than "earthquake". --Golbez (talk) 04:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support The existing title is ambiguous as there were multiple earthquakes in the Indian Ocean in 2004. There was only one earthquake with tsunami in the Indian Ocean at the time.  The tsunami itself was the effect that contributed to across the whole Indian Ocean, whereas the earthquake was local.  If you are looking to be geographically accurate it would be Indonesian. or even Aceh earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami, however, the proposed renaming is sufficiently accurately descriptively to garner support.  billinghurst  sDrewth  12:21, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you name any other earthquakes in 2004 in the Indian Ocean area? I tried to find some, but all I could find was this one - there is no likelihood of ambiguity in my opinion. Mikenorton (talk) 21:46, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. Not mentioning the tsunami in the title is perverse. The tsunami is what people remember of this event, not the earthquake. In plain Google, "tsunami" outnumbers "earthquake" 4:1 (searching for 2004 "Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami"). In Google Books the ratio is 7:1, in Google News 8:1, and in Google Scholar 7:1. WP:COMMONNAME means we absolutely have to have "tsunami" in the title. The arguments of Golbez and Mikenorton are mere pedantry, to be frank. Fences  &amp;  Windows  19:54, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Consensus for move not obvious
This discussion seems to have been brought to a sudden end, without any overwhelming consensus. Mikenorton (talk) 22:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I can live with the move by the way...Modernist (talk) 23:31, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I also wonder who is going to move all the other articles. I count at least ten articles with "Indian Ocean earthquake" in their title; for consistency, these must also be moved. --Golbez (talk) 02:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No one? Because that's pretty sloppy. --Golbez (talk) 13:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Really? We're just going to move this and depart without caring about the integrity of the rest of the article names? --Golbez (talk) 19:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The discussion was closed per the rules of WP:RM which say discussions usually are closed within 7 days - there were 9 days for the disscussion.Jason Rees (talk) 02:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see the 'clear consensus' though. Mikenorton (talk) 10:36, 6 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see that there was any consensus here either. I am persuaded by the arguments presented by Golbez in the requested move discussion, and would have opposed any move. As many months have passed, I think there is sufficient justification for a new move discussion, especially as many articles that should have been moved to include "tsunami" in the title were not (also noted above by Golbez). Carcharoth (talk) 03:58, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Length of Earthquake rupture
The article currently uses a figure of 1600 km as the rupture length, but I can't find where that number comes from. All the sources that I've looked at give 1200 or 1300 km, with that latter being the most common. Does anyone know if there is a source for the higher number? If no-one comes forward with a source, I'll make the change to 1300 km. Mikenorton (talk) 18:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I have seen the rupture length. I believe the figure comes from an episode of Seconds from Disaster in which geologists prove the length of the rupture to be 1600km. I can't link directly to the episode but look out for it on TV and it does say the length is 1600km. Wiki235 (talk) 20:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * As in my answer below, I would rather see a scientific paper describing the 1600 km to back up the TV show. Mikenorton (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * After a trawl through about 20 papers, the range quoted is 1200-1600 km although only one paper gives that upper value, as the upper end of a range, all the rest are 1200-1300 km, the majority 1300 km. So, as I said before, it looks like a change to 1300 km would be in order. Mikenorton (talk) 21:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If I can find no evidence further then I think it should be changed to 1300km. The Geologist in question is a chap called Kerry Seah, on the program. This along with the magnitude is obvious grey area, with many different interpretations, perhaps if we say " is believed to be around 1300km long, however the rupture could have extended as far as 1600km by some estimates." At least then we're including the other measurements and not ignoring them. Wiki235 (talk) 09:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Earthquake Magnitude
People have asked for proof of this quake reaching 9.3. If you look at reference 9 I believe there's you're proof. Wiki235 (talk) 21:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, hardly proof, the journalist doesn't even understand the difference between moment magnitude and local magnitude (Richter) scales. I wouldn't use New Scientist as a source for this, there's loads of scientific papers written about this - I'll see what I can dig out. Mikenorton (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Apart from the initial Mw=9.0, most seismologists give values in the range Mw= 9.1-9.3, as Kanamori says, 9.2 is a good representative value for the magnitude. Ishii et al. give 9.3 if you need a ref for that, but it just the maximum end of the quoted range. Mikenorton (talk) 21:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

If you check the citations of the last paragraph from the "signs and warnings" section, you'll find that the paragraph is completely fabricated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.24.248.175 (talk) 19:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Possibility that space-weather may have indicated or caused an impending earthquake.
The largest gamma ray blast ever witnessed happened just 44.6 hours later, with an intensity 100 times more than any burst that had been previously recorded. So the MOST powerful earthquake ever recorded happens less than two days before the MOST powerful gamma blast ever recorded. Coincidence? Really?

Here is a link discussing this: http://www.etheric.com/GalacticCenter/GRB.html

Also the magnetosphere also showed abnormal phenomena in the days prior to the EQ. How come no one is discussing this? Anyone have a verifiable image/video of that? Certainly someone wrote some paper about all of this. I know that they have about the recorded EM of the tsunami, at least. Still no mention of that here though.

Editors, grow some backbone and stir up some scientific inquiry. PLEASE! --66.223.140.193 (talk) 06:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Your last paragraph is out of line. This is the first any of us (certainly me) have heard of this, so it's rather insulting to order us to grow a backbone about something that, until now, we didn't know exist. I don't typically respond to people insulting me for no reason. And if there's a verifiable source, I'm sure you can look for one. --Golbez (talk) 14:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Previous move discussions
Can anyone list the previous move discussions? I want to include 'Great Sumatra–Andaman Earthquake' (177,000 hits) versus "Indian Ocean earthquake" (85,000 hits) as one option in a requested move discussion, as well as a possible move back to the 'lone' earthquake title. If I have time, I'll do that tomorrow. Actually, I'll do it now. Carcharoth (talk) 04:01, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Requested move to Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: 'not moved. Consensus is that the article shouldn't be moved to this title. Discussions on a split etc. can continue below. Dpmuk (talk) 15:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami → Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake — Requesting a move to 'Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake' because this is the name that has become firmly established in the scientific literature and is now being used outside the scientific literature as well. The name used here on Wikipedia is not being used as much now, and the name used here should change to reflect the changing name use outside of Wikipedia. Also, historically, the biggest earthquakes are referred to as "Great", and that is clearly what has happened here. The Google hits (though not decisive in such matters), are interesting. Google various phrase combinations, and you will see that Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake at 177,000 hits is very firmly established as the name for this event. Carcharoth (talk) 04:18, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose: I worry this move would make it more difficult for people to recognize. The current title has the year, location which almost everybody will know (Indian Ocean), and earthquake and tsunami, the latter being a very important and well-known component of it. –CWenger (talk) 02:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose the major action is the tsunami. Further, all the regular news services call it the "Indian Ocean Tsunami" (not quake), in the anniversary shows, and in connection to the current Japanese tsunami event. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 03:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * google news:
 * "Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake" 11hits
 * "Indian Ocean Tsunami" 7490hits
 * "Indian Ocean Earthquake" 336hits
 * And many of the hits on regular google for the "Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake" don't seem to deal with the tsunami. If it doesn't deal with the tsunami, it's not a good title. The non-geologic event is more historically notable than the geologic event to the world at large. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 03:24, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, you have a point in that I should have addressed the issue of "earthquake" vs "earthquake and tsunami" before making this move request. It is two separate naming issues that should be addressed separately. I'll make a start on that below. Carcharoth (talk) 06:27, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. We use the common name, as shown through the Google results by 184.144.160.156. Shreevatsa (talk) 06:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose the policy is to use common names not scientific names as the main title. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:05, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I was unclear. Apologies for that. What I am saying is that the common name is changing over time. It used to be "2004 Indian Ocean earthquake", but over the past 6 years the pendulum has been slowly swinging. Possibly it will take some more years before the change is complete, but the common name is clearly changing. Is there a way to filter out the past use of the name to focus on current use of the name? Carcharoth (talk) 06:27, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That name only refers to the Earthquake in seemingly mostly scholarly studies about the geologic process; Considering the recent coverage of the Japanese tsunami, they refer to this tsunami as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, not the "Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake", which I have not yet once seen in coverage of the Japanese tsunami. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 11:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You are again confusing two issues. I would actually agree with this article being at 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, with the earthquake details covered in more depth in a separate article. What I disagree with most of all is the way that the two are pushed together in the article title. It is a very slipshod approach to article naming to merge two events in the same title. With hindsight, I should have proposed an article split, not a rename. Would anyone support splitting the article? If you look at the article structure, it would actually not be too difficult to split the two apart, with a summary of the other left in each one. Carcharoth (talk) 06:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Rationale for including tsunami in the title name
Could anyone reading this (including those looking at the rename request) say what the rationale is for including "tsunami" in the article title? We currently have four articles that tack "tsunami" on the end of the title for the article on the causative event. However, this trend to tack the word tsunami on the end of the name is fairly recent (all the above examples post-date the move of this article to its new name in July 2010). I'm not at all sure it is the right approach. We have many examples of tsunamis not "attached" to the event that caused them. Most are at historic tsunamis. Some examples (the list could be much longer) of events that caused massive tsunami are: Minoan eruption; 1883 eruption of Krakatoa; 1700 Cascadia earthquake; 1755 Lisbon earthquake; Ansei Great Earthquakes; 1908 Messina earthquake. It is worth emphasising that those articles were written and created without the word tsunami in the title: it is only a recent trend to name articles differently. There are also some tsunami with their own articles and none (yet) on the cause: 1771 Great Yaeyama Tsunami and 1952 Severo-Kurilsk tsunami. So clearly it is not impossible to have separate articles.
 * 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami
 * 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
 * October 2010 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami
 * 869 Sanriku earthquake and tsunami

The key point is that tsunami are not something that occur by themselves. They are caused by something. When you have an event and something caused by that event, how common is it to come up with compound names like this for cause and consequence? I think it is just the wrong way to approach naming an article, unless it is an overview article and there are two separate articles on the events themselves. The other point is that this earthquake article existed for nearly 6 years without tsunami in the title. How can the poorly attended discussion above (in July 2010) overturn that? I am considering laying out the above argument in more detail, and starting a request for comment to get more views than those that were expressed at the July 2010 discussion, but first I wanted to see what those watching this page, or reading this section, think. Carcharoth (talk) 06:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * We should just call this the Indian Ocean Tsunami, since the earthquake is just the intiating event, and not the most important part of the disaster. The tsunami is the more important part of the disaster. It is more frequently called that in the popular news (as opposed to scholarly studies of the earthquake, which do not seem to study the tsunami much) without "earthquake" tacked on to it. Tsunamis can be caused by many things, not just earthquakes. The tsunami is the thing that caused the damage across the Indian Ocean, including South Asia and Africa, not the earthquake. Earthquake shaking was mostly local. The tsunami, and not the earthquake is what caused various governments across the Indian Ocean basin to set up tsunami warning systems. Earthquakes occurred all the time, without governments wanting to set up such a system. 184.144.160.156 (talk) 11:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I was against renaming this article when the change happened last July without much of a discussion. However, I did name the 869 event including the tsunami, because the historical documents, the scientific evidence and the modelling were all about the tsunami although I don't think that the earthquake should be missed out. The 2004 earthquake was one of the largest recorded and caused many deaths in Aceh from the shaking (although the tsunami caused more), and would deserve a large article even if there had been no tsunami. Some earthquakes cause death and destruction by triggering many landslides (as in the 1949 Khait earthquake) or causing panic, major fires or disease, but the associated articles all just include 'earthquake' in the title. The current title is something of a compromise and one I find that I can live with. Mikenorton (talk) 11:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think one idea would be to start with an article about the earthquake, and then to split off a separate article about the tsunami if it generates enough independent coverage (or the other way round if the tsunami gets most coverage). In cases where they both generate lots of coverage, it should be easy to sustain two separate articles. But merging the two together seems unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. Carcharoth (talk) 06:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * A split would be good. It was proposed way back in 2004, when Earthquake people said no. The way to handle a split would be three articles, one under the current title, that overviews the quake and tsunami, and two subarticles, one mainly geological, about the quake, the other, about the tsunami, mostly political/damage/societal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.144.166.85 (talk) 06:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Something's screwy with the energy calculations
4*10^22 J is inconsistent with a magnitude 9.3 Earthquake, for comparison the 8.8 2010 Chile Earthquake was 6*10^19, which would make this one around 2*10^20. The rule of thumb is 4.0=1KT so by that this one would be around the 30GT range (or around 1.2*10^20 J). The Richter magnitude scale page lists it as 1.5*10^19 J. Given the 44TW of power that flows to the surface of the Earth (the energy source of Earthquakes) this one Earthquake would have used up half of the Earth's "energy budget" (so to speak) for the last 100 years (and given that there has been a larger Earthquake in the past 100 years and three others of comparable size and that this is considered normal Earthquake frequency... yeah, something's wrong). Is it certain that the data in the citation has been interpreted correctly? 82.11.1.60 (talk) 12:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://wwz.ifremer.fr/drogm/content/download/36024/293289/file/2007EPSLSibuet.pdf
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:21:18, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed broken link. Mikenorton (talk) 08:08, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 2
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=26681113&brk=1
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:21:27, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Reworded text as the 2005 event was not an aftershock, removing the ref with the broken link and added new USGS ref. Mikenorton (talk) 08:43, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 3
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.seattlepi.com/local/211012_tsunamiscience07.html
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:21:47, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Replaced ref with broken link by new ref. Mikenorton (talk) 10:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 4
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050825_tsunami_waves.html
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:22:02, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed broken link. Mikenorton (talk) 10:37, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 5
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.disaster.go.th/news01/12_47/news_after_shock_34.pdf
 * In Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on Thailand on 2011-03-18 00:40:23, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:22:14, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Replaced ref with broken link with new ref. Mikenorton (talk) 10:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 6
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.mv.undp.org/drtf/presentation.pdf
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:22:42, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Replace ref with broken link by new ref. Mikenorton (talk) 12:12, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 7
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.alnap.org/tec/pdf/TEC_initial_report_20051223_finalversion.pdf
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:51, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:22:56, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have been unable to find an alternative ref for the 200 displaced people on the Seychelles, perhaps others may have more luck. Mikenorton (talk) 12:34, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 8
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=271&fArticleId=2357542
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:56, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:23:08, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Replaced ref with broken link by new ref. Mikenorton (talk) 12:48, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 9
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gjmISYdBCLjY1eFtSMUOSsApr2_AD944AB583
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-05-25 07:44:56, 410 Gone
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:23:21, 410 Gone

--JeffGBot (talk) 08:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I removed this ref as it does not appear to be necessary to support the text. Mikenorton (talk) 12:57, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 10
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://www.irw.org/tsunami/
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-11 08:22:14, 404 Not Found
 * In 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 2011-06-26 01:25:45, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 01:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Replaced ref with broken link by new ref. Mikenorton (talk) 13:07, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

George Bush's signature
Why is that there? Is that really a worldwide view of the topic? It certainly has no relation to the text. 129.67.86.189 (talk) 20:39, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Consistency in comparisons with other earthquakes
The third paragraph starts with, "With a magnitude of Mw 9.1–9.3, it is the third largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph," placing this event behind Alaska, 1964 and Chile, 1960 in terms of size. But the 5th paragraph under Earthquake characteristics says, "The Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was the largest earthquake since 1964, and the second largest since the Kamchatka earthquake of October 16, 1737." If it's the third largest recorded on a seismograph, it cannot be the second largest since 1737. Also, the 1737 Kamchatka event is listed as a magnitude 8.3, which is smaller than the top 15 listed by the USGS since 1900. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kylaramm (talk • contribs) 01:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Done. Yep, the problem seemed to be isolated to the second half the single sentence you quoted from the 'Earthquake characteristics'. As you have pointed out, this statemate appears to be incorrect in more ways than one, so I just went ahead and deleted it and combined the two paragraphs. Good catch.--Racerx11 (talk) 01:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Why red?
Why is the {Earthquakes in 2004} red, but still has wikilinks shown (Morocco (6.4, Feb 24) Chūetsu (6.8, Oct 23) Cayman Islands (6.8, Dec 14) Sumatra–Andaman‡ (9.3, Dec 26))? 99.181.134.146 (talk) 23:30, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Template:Earthquakes in 2004 is part of a series of templates, some of which are associated with an article (for example, Earthquakes in 2012). Some, like this one, are not. I delinked it so it appears as black. RockMagnetist (talk) 00:24, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Representation in Film/TV
Is it worth having a section on how this particular tsunami is represented in film and TV? The article currently links to two works: Children of Tsunami: No More Tears, a documentary short film, and Tsunami: The Aftermath, a TV movie (apparently also shown as a miniseries). Then there's the upcoming feature film The Impossible (or at least its trailer). And there are likely a number of TV episodes such as the season 42 Horizon episode "Tsunami, Naming the Dead". Are there more? That's actually what I'm here to find out. 24.57.210.141 (talk) 04:19, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Correct typo error in reference 71 Soutn -> South. 217.39.5.245 (talk) 21:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks! --Golbez (talk) 21:19, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Spammer alert
Sorry, but I don't know the best way to handle this kind of problem. As of 2012-4-29, this article is being cited by at least one spammer as 'evidence' to add credibility to a 419 scam. I don't know if that is related to the current semi-protected status of the article, though it is obvious that spammers could give additional credibility to their scams by also tailoring and vandalizing the articles to provide convenient details related to their scams. There should be some way to add a scammer warning to articles, but I don't know what it is. What I do know is that scammers will damage Wikipedia's reputation if they can make money by doing it, and what I believe is that the best response would be to quickly add, at least temporarily, an anti-spammer warning to such articles. Rather than gaining support for their scams, the spammers should receive ANTI-support and perhaps the potential victims should even receive a specific warning. Shanen (talk) 02:43, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No. That's just not appropriate for a Wikipedia article. --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Nice one Hillary! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.23.66.170 (talk) 17:44, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * You mean it isn't appropriate for spammers to use Wikipedia, or it isn't appropriate to warn potential victims of the spammers who trust Wikipedia? Or it isn't appropriate to watch if the spammer is vandalizing Wikipedia to make his scam sound more plausible? Or you think it's not appropriate to worry about people being conned into supporting non-existent charities for victims of such disasters?


 * Whatever you mean, a spammer, probably the same one, is again citing this article as "credible evidence" of why suckers should send him money. I'm going to add the warning again. However, I think that Wikipedia should have a simple mechanism to quickly add such a warning, providing a link to the page that warns against such scams. Shanen (talk) 11:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The warning such as the one you placed is indeed inappropriate. Can you clarify the specific issues at hand? What exactly is the scammer "citing"? The proper course of action would be to remove the spam and block the spammers. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If you continue to vandalize the article by placing this warning, you will be prevented from doing it further. No one cares if something in Wikipedia is being used for nefarious purposes; this isn't the first time, it won't be the last. And if you truly cared, you would bring it to people who can actually do things (like the Wikimedia legal department, or the wider community) rather than putting up horrible garish warnings that will accomplish less than nothing (Hey, want to make Wikipedia look like it's run by spammers? How about having an ugly, poorly worded and formatted message! That'll raise our credibility!) --Golbez (talk) 13:53, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, that was a surprisingly rude reply. Maybe it didn't read that rudely to you when you were writing it, but as a casual reader several months later, it sure looks rude to me. The funny thing is, I got here by a Wiki-wander that somehow traipsed through WP:Barn -- specifically, the Defender of the Wiki Barnstar, which was so deliciously ironic that I couldn't resist adding this message even though I've never been tempted to say anything on Wikipedia before. --69.131.224.228 (talk) 00:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

"Sixth deadliest natural disaster"
Under "casualties" in the infobox:

"230,210 – 280,000 deaths[2][3] (the sixth deadliest natural disaster in recorded history)"

The link is to List_of_natural_disasters which doesn't list this event in the ten deadliest natural disasters, but it is listed as the fourth deadliest natural disaster since 1900. --holizz (talk) 04:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Relief work section?
Hi! I just found a reference which stated that the Times Foundation with other NGO jointly provided houses for the affected people. How about adding a section stating such relief activities? This link - http://www.ncrc.in/Mediawatch/NCRC/Aug16-31_Mediawatch.pdf - also mentions some government initiatives. Thx, Traintogain (talk) 03:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory
Here are my issues with Soffredo's content:
 * The only sources provided that it is a "popular theory in the Muslim world" do no justification whatsoever of their stance. It's impossible to justify, because they aren't news articles. They are single paragraphs accompanying slideshows of "lol look at these wacky theories!" Your attempt to flood with sources that are nothing more than slide shows is disingenuous. There is such a thing as oversourcing, especially when they're virtually identical to each other.
 * You make the assertion that the test existed. I tried to change it to "supposed test", you changed it back to "the test". In a vacuum, out of context, that makes it sound like you're saying the test existed. There was no reason to undo my addition of "supposed". Perhaps a better word? Theorized?
 * We can source that this theory exists. We have no adequate sourcing for its popularity.

Here are my issues with Soffredo's conduct:
 * On Wikipedia, we generally operate on the principle of Bold, Revert, Discuss. Someone makes a bold addition to an article. It may then be reverted by someone who disagrees with it. We then discuss it on the talk page. To continue to put it back because you disagree with the reversion is plain and simple edit warring.
 * I asked you to come to the talk page twice. You have decided that's not for you and continued your edit war.
 * Neither of us have not formally broken 3RR, but we are clearly edit warring, and if it continues, I will report us both.

I await a response. --Golbez (talk) 21:02, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I've removed the short section that covered the conspiracy theory on the basis that it's a fringe view. The sourcing was poor - if the mainstream media considered this even a remote possibility there would be much better sources around. Mikenorton (talk) 21:11, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * If you want, you can remove the sentence stating that it's popular in the Muslim world. Just say it's a conspiracy theory. I found there to be no need to bring this to the talk page. Also, every time you gave me a reason for you undoing my edits, I fixed it. The revision history seems to have removed all the notes that went along with the edits, so I can't show you proof. But I remember adding more sources and finding the newspaper that originally reported the theory. I recall stating that you could delete any unnecessary sources, correct? I don't see why you kept removing the information, as it had far too many sources. I have to say, I'm sorry I changed "supposed test" to "the test", as I didn't notice you made that change.   [  Soffredo  ]   21:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't keep posting this "crap" because I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist, I'm putting it because it's interesting information about this event. Revision history working again:
 * "it's not that the telegraph is not a reputable source, but we need more than a single caption on an image to call it 'popular'." → I added another source
 * "adding world net daily ridiculing an unlinked al jazeera report (that i can find no existence of online) is not exactly helping" → You didn't read the article correctly, it stated that an Egyptian newspaper reported this. I then found a source that gave the newspaper's name.
 * "ok, you have sourced the theory. you have not sourced its popularity" → You didn't read The Telegraph slideshow
 * "you're spamming slideshows (which are never presented as news) to justify crap." → I proposed that you remove all sources you deemed unnecessary, and said that there was no need to remove all the information.
 * In order:
 * "If you want, you can remove the sentence stating that it's popular in the Muslim world." I TRIED. You reverted it.
 * "I found there to be no need to bring this to the talk page" You were incorrect; you edit warring to place it in the article was an obvious need to discuss rather than fight.
 * "The revision history seems to have removed all the notes..." Er, no? I see lots of notes in your edit summaries, that's how I knew you were seeing my request to come to the talk page.
 * "I remember adding sources..." Yes, you did, but you realize that at one point you had four or five sources that were nothing but an unjustified paragraph to go along with an image in a slideshow about conspiracy theories? What made you think that, if one was insufficient, that more of the same would work?
 * "I added another source" Yes you did, but not one that justified the 'popular in the muslim world' stance. None of your sources justified that statement.
 * "You didn't read the article correctly" True. I got as far as "reports Al-Jazeera, the popular Arab news service." Apparently, AJ was only reporting on the idea of weapons in general causing it, not nuclear ones, and yes, that was sourced to Al-Osboa. That's nice. So, one Egyptian magazine came up with this theory. That does not make it popular in any world, let alone Muslim. Also, one magazine having a theory that many other people report on (with general ridicule) does not mean it gets into Wikipedia.
 * "You didn't read the Telegraph slideshow" Yes, I did. It was an image caption that said it was a popular theory. Not According to which studies and scholarship, it didn't say. A newspaper saying something and not justifying it is not proper sourcing.
 * "I proposed that you remove all sources you deemed unnecessary" You will note that I did exactly that. I excised all of the slideshows and left us with actual reporting. --Golbez (talk) 22:30, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "The revision history seems to have removed all the notes..." → "Revision history working again"
 * Do you want to propose a compromise/agreement or are we just going to continue trying to prove who here is right?   [  Soffredo  ]   23:02, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I offered a compromise several times (keeping most of the info, just removing the bit about 'popular in the muslim world') and you rejected it without thinking this worthy enough to explain on the talk page. And now that we have other people involved who would rather it not be there at all, and I'm certainly not going to keep them from their good deeds. You had your chance to accept my compromise, and now, I'm not the one you have to compromise with, Mikenorton is. You're new to Wikipedia, you need to understand that when people disagree with you, you go to the talk page, you don't simply keep putting the edit back or trying to put lipstick on a pig. If you had done that from the start, this would have been far less of an issue. --Golbez (talk) 23:14, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You were undoing my whole edits. Not just removing the "popular in the muslim world" part.   [  Soffredo  ]   23:36, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed the entire edit when it wasn't properly sourced (i.e. relying on the slideshow). Once you got actual reporting in there, I trimmed it only of the inadequately sourced portion. As I said, "ok, you have sourced the theory, not the popularity" --Golbez (talk) 01:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed the entire edit when it wasn't properly sourced (i.e. relying on the slideshow). Once you got actual reporting in there, I trimmed it only of the inadequately sourced portion. As I said, "ok, you have sourced the theory, not the popularity" --Golbez (talk) 01:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Soffredo, no one has reached a consensus yet and you again reverted his edits. We need to reach an agreement regarding whether to include this conspiracy theory. Please refrain from the reverting and continue with the discussion here, no one likes to get involved with the wp:Administrator's noticeboard and I'm afraid you might break the 3RR rule soon. It will be to everyone's relief if this matter ends here and not anywhere else. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 09:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that Soffredo just added multiple unsourced bits of information. Also, WP:FRINGE - Just because a theory exists doesn't mean it warrants mention here. Soffredo, here's the ultimatum. I'm going to remove what you just added. If you put it, or anything resembling it, back again without gaining a consensus on this talk page, I will take this to the wider community and I'm pretty confident they will smack you down until you figure out how Wikipedia works and how to play well with others. This is your final warning. I am a very, very lazy person, and I hate having to write up edit war reports, but that's where we're heading. --Golbez (talk) 13:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The added material wasn't unsourced, and I don't see why the information doesn't belong to be on the article? I originally oversourced the section to show it how popular the nuclear/tsunami bomb theory was.   [  Soffredo  ]   20:31, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You found a half dozen slideshows on the Internet saying that this theory exists. That does not mean it's a popular, notable, or important theory. (Think about it: If it was any of those things, then why did none of these reputable news outlets deign to put it in an actual article?) It does mean, however, that it's a heavily ridiculed and "hey guys look at this list of wacky conspiracy theories" theory. And, from what I can tell, all reporting on this theory originates from a single Egyptian magazine article from 2005. Why should one article written by irrational crackpots eight years ago be given any credence whatsoever? --Golbez (talk) 20:53, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "I don't keep posting this "crap" because I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist, I'm putting it because it's interesting information about this event" I'm not giving it credence. And it's not just "one article" if many others have made references to it's theory. It seems that you're talking about the Indian-American-Israeli nuclear test theory. What about the tsunami bomb theory? What do you think about those sources?   [  Soffredo  ]   21:09, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree that it's interesting information about the event. It's an amusing anecdote but there's no reason to mention that here. To mention it here gives it more credence than it deserves. And yes, it is one article. Every outlet that sourced its source for this linked it eventually back to that one article in al Osboa. Every one that you've supplied that is. The ones that didn't source it there didn't source it at all, which means their statements are mostly useless. And what about the tsunami bomb? I don't understand what you're saying, since its intersection with this subject is precisely the nuclear test theory. Unless you're saying there's a second bomb theory that isn't the fantastical (let's stop calling it a theory) Indian test? --Golbez (talk) 21:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)\
 * There are two nuclear theories: the Indian-Israeli-American test, and the nuclear tsunami bomb test. Yes, they're sometimes intersecting, yet sometimes separate. If a theory were to be implemented into the article, which one would it be based upon how reasonable it is and sources?   [  Soffredo  ]   14:01, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see - you sourced that with a slideshow saying that some people (who?) claim it was caused by a tsunami bomb (by whom?). Neither theory is sufficiently sourced for popularity or important, and the tsunami bomb one is extremely unsourced for that, unless you have better sources available. Also, your edits to tsunami bomb indicate they're the same thing, since that's also sourced to one article in al Osboa. So, while you say the supposed Indian test and the tsunami bomb are different things, your sources actually disagree, they're both eventually sourced back to al Osboa, and I don't know why we're letting al Osboa's random fantasies dictate what gets in Wikipedia. You realize what gets in these slideshows is wacky theories, not good ones, right? You'll see "holograms did 9/11!" long before you see something serious like "a cruise missile hit the Pentagon". If they had made up a theory that the tsunami was caused by fish farting in unison, it could well end up on one of these slideshows because, well, how could it not? So we can't rely on al Osboa's ramblings to dictate what gets in Wikipedia, they have to have a life outside of the Internet ridicule machine. Basically, we would need at the very least an article, with journalism and sourcing and everything, showing how this is a theory that anyone actually cares about. The existence of the theory is not enough to get it in; the presence of it on many slideshows is not enough; what is enough is to show that a lot of people actually believe it. ... I'm gonna be bold and say we're going to need a source independent of al Osboa to indicate that. --Golbez (talk) 14:42, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * And hell, I'll be honest here - I could well be too harsh on the whole process. Maybe the existence of ridicule of the theory is sufficient for a mention, or a link back to tsunami bomb. This basically all comes back to I'm still annoyed at you because you haven't once taken ownership of your incivil and disruptive activity. So maybe we should bring in other eyes, because I'm biased. --Golbez (talk) 14:51, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Disruptive activity? You undid my whole edits, one time because you didn't read the article I sourced. I'd rather not argue who here was wrong, because we're always going to believe ourselves. As for the conclusion to the conspiracy theories being involved, I now agree that they shouldn't be included despite the interesting information being shared around the internet. Please do not continue this conversation if it's going to be about my "incivil and disruptive activity".   [  Soffredo  ]   19:00, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Resolved - The nuclear conspiracy theory made by al Osboa isn't notable enough to be included into the article.  [  Soffredo  ]   19:00, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

9.1-9.3
USGS says 9.1, so why 9.1-9.3? 78.156.109.166 (talk) 08:46, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Because the magnitude has also been calculated by various other agencies and academic groups - see Talk:2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami/Archive_8 for more details. Mikenorton (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

"Possible human component in magnitude of damage"
Does this section have any basis in fact? It cites only an article by a journalist 'Andrew Browne' (qualification: zero) that looks to be 100% opinion and speculation. This sort of entry undermines the factual reporting of a terrible disaster, presumably to either: 1. promote this journalist, or 2. permit weak research from a lazy contributor. I think this section should be rewritten based on cited facts, not gossip-hype, or preferably removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.221.8.66 (talk) 03:12, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

- I agree. This section has no notability and should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.232.230.223 (talk) 15:21, 7 August 2013 (UTC) yeah....what they said — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.182.111.132 (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2013
In second paragraph, suggest replacing (98ft) with (100ft).

Since the prior phrase "30 metres" was meant as a round number, 100ft would be a more faithful translation than 98ft. Mathematically, 30 metres is nearer 98.4252 feet, but that's not the point. Extraneous precision is misleading in cases like this. The point to be conveyed (in whatever units of measure are most familiar to the reader) was that the waves were monstrously large. 100feet conveys "large" very effectively, while 98ft implies that someone was out there making measurements accurate to the nearest foot. Oh no they weren't.

Thank you.

174.111.17.223 (talk) 22:35, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Technical 13 (talk) 01:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done. Added sigfig=1 to the template, like was already done in the article body. This was a technical/MOS issue and didn't require additional sourcing. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:36, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 March 2014
I would like to request that in the country effected that you put Kenya

81.151.114.120 (talk) 17:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 18:04, 5 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Kenya is already mentioned in the article body. So is Myanmar (Burma), Maldives, Malaysia, Tanzania, Seychelles, Bangladesh, South Africa, Yemen and Madagascar, almost all of which were affected to a greater degree than Kenya, but aren't included in the infobox. --Paul_012 (talk) 03:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 May 2014
Same problem, new instance. Wikipedia's own internal automated measurement conversions are inventing higher precision than is factual. Problem arises in the sentence...

It also caused the Earth to minutely "wobble" on its axis by up to 2.5 cm (0.98 in)

...the original source for this statement no doubt said "up to an inch" with the speaker having had every intention of implying no more precision than "roughly the width of my own thumb." Someone then translated "an inch" into 2.54cm. Someone else rounded that down to 2.5cm. Someone else then divided by 2.54 to return to 0.98in (parenthetically). Result: the signal has been lost in the noise. The following rephrase...

It also caused the Earth to minutely "wobble" on its axis by up to an inch (a couple of centimetres)

...would come much closer to faithfully conveying the original intent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.111.17.223 (talk) 03:25, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem here appears to have been a misunderstanding of the "sigfig" parameter. Removed that, simply replaced with "0" (which means round to 0 spots) and it now rounds up to 1 inch. Not perfect, but I'm not keen on having this be the one place in the article where we give imperial first and metric second, it would stand out. I also don't want to jump to 2.54cm because, again, that's kind of too precise as well. "Up to an inch" is as vague a measurement as someone can get, we obviously don't want to give the precise conversions. Saying 2.5 cm / 1 in is sufficient and matches the spirit of what was said. --Golbez (talk) 13:39, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Precursor event?
I would not consider the temporary dropping water table in a lake on the other side of the globe (Boiling Lake, Dominica) a precursor to the Indian Ocean earthquake without solid evidence. Unless scientific data support this claim, it is mere coincidence and including it in the article amounts to advertising a tourism destination. (Paaskynen (talk) 04:21, 27 May 2014 (UTC))


 * Agreed and removed - the cited source didn't really support it anyway. Mikenorton (talk) 07:49, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 July 2014

 * row=Malaysia |column=Displaced |At least 10000

58.26.127.148 (talk) 14:16, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — cyberpower ChatOnline 08:19, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 July 2014
http://www.ukm.my/geografia/images/upload/4.2009-1-katiman-melayu-2.pdf

58.26.127.148 (talk) 14:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — cyberpower ChatOnline 08:20, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 August 2014
The second paragraph of the "Earthquake Characteristics" section is in serious need of copy-editing. I recommend replacing
 * The hypocentre of the main earthquake was approximately 160 km, in the Indian Ocean just north of Simeulue island, off the western coast of northern Sumatra, at a depth of 30 km below mean sea level (initially reported as 10 km). The northern section of the Sunda megathrust, ruptured; the rupture having a length of 1300 km.

with the following:
 * The hypocentre of the main earthquake was approximately 160 km off the western coast of northern Sumatra, in the Indian Ocean just north of Simeulue island at a depth of 30 km below mean sea level (initially reported as 10 km). The northern section of the Sunda megathrust ruptured over a length of 1300 km.

130.216.218.47 (talk) 06:37, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 December 2014
Please fix "year=200 6" in reference #51. 85.242.19.138 (talk) 23:51, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

✅ Thanks, Dawnseeker2000   00:36, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Many Missing References/Citations
While this article is insightful, there are too places where references/citations are missing. While I could go through and insert "citation required", that would upset the flow of the article hence creating this talk section instead. Not really sure what else to do.

This issue particularly effects the sections "Aftershocks and other earthquakes" and "Other Effects", but this problem appears throughout the article in various places. For example, the following claims have been made: "Some seismologists have speculated..."; "Some scientists confirm that..."; "...U.S. Geological Survey sees no evidence of a causal relationship..."; "According to specialists, the main effect..."; "Many health professionals and aid workers have reported...". None of these claims are are provided with any form of robust reference or citation. If these claims can't be verified, then they need to be removed. Some citations that are given are simply generic media articles (or another Wikipedia page) which does not provide the scientific support needed to verify such claims.

Also, a minor but important point - referencing should be "at the place of the claim/statement being made" rather than being left to the end of the paragraph. Mari370 (talk) 00:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I've reworked the last paragraph of the 'Aftershocks and other earthquake' section, concerning triggered volcanic eruptions. I don't see a particular problem with a citation at the end of a short paragraph, covering preceding statements, but agree that doesn't work for longer paragraphs. I'll take a look at the rest over the next few days and see what I can do. Mikenorton (talk) 10:11, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16th March 2015
Wave Of Destruction - the original 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami video/photo archive is back online after many years of downtime.

Would you please consider reinstating/adding it to the "External Links" section:

http://www.waveofdestruction.org
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Not sure what this adds, doesn't seem to be a very impressive collection. The video section literally links to a youtube playlist. Cannolis (talk) 03:31, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 May 2015
Fix the magnitude to 9.0 USGS has changed the magnitude to 9.0 as they did for alaska 1964 9.2 now 9.3 chile 1960 was 9.5 now 9.6.

Eliteknight12 (talk) 08:48, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —  13:02, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 September 2015
In this section:

Films and television
You can see that the link to the article about The Impossible (2012) film is broken by a missed right parenthesis ')'. Therefore, it should be changed to this:
 * Children of Tsunami: No More Tears (2005), a 24-minute documentary film
 * The Impossible) (2012), an English-language Spanish film based on the story of María Belón and her family
 * Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006), a two-part television miniseries about its after-effects

Films and television

 * Children of Tsunami: No More Tears (2005), a 24-minute documentary film
 * The Impossible) (2012), an English-language Spanish film based on the story of María Belón and her family
 * Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006), a two-part television miniseries about its after-effects

189.106.232.100 (talk) 23:08, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Just note that it should have been the following to resolve the formatting issue you had mentioned above:

Films and television

 * Children of Tsunami: No More Tears (2005), a 24-minute documentary film
 * The Impossible (2012), an English-language Spanish film based on the story of María Belón and her family
 * Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006), a two-part television miniseries about its after-effects
 * Yes check.svgDone JustBerry (talk) 23:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

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Did over three hundred thousand really die?
I dispute this especially as the first number of dead came from an American source. If someone could give me peace of mind somehow over the death toll, then please do so. -- 60.234.214.63 (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've reduced the maximum to 280,000 as that appears to be the largest number quoted by the sources given in this article. I've had a look around for other figures, but the ones that we have seem to me to be representative. If someone knows where the 310,000 figure came from, it would be good to discuss that. Mikenorton (talk) 07:11, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The numbers in different languages differ a whole lot. In the Swedish version (which is a "recommended version" states 220 000-300 000 dead with more than 5M people homeless. The Norwegian (featured article) claims 284 881 confirmed and 345 000 "estimated" with roughly 1.5M homeless. The English version claims 184 167 dead, 230273 estimated and 1.74M displaced. Obviously at least two of these languages got it wrong. Would be nice with some consistency between the different languages. 2003:6:3AD:933:59A5:B660:2CB7:3863 (talk) 12:35, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

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Death toll
I started looking again at the reported death toll for this disaster. I found several sources, including the USGS one already cited, that say that the Indonesian authorities "drastically" reduced the number of missing people by more than 50,000 in April 2005 (see also this news report). This joint report by the UN and BRR (the Indonesian Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency for Aceh and Nias) gives a total of 167,540 killed and missing for Aceh and Nias, the two areas affected. I think that we should update our text to reflect the numbers as reported in the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition Synthesis Report - see table 2.1, page 33 and see also a further comment on the reduction of the number of missing people in Indonesia on page 35. Mikenorton (talk) 13:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC)


 * There being no disagreement, I've updated the figures - I just need to track down all instances of the 280,000 figure elsewhere on the project. Mikenorton (talk) 17:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm also looking again at the numbers used for individual countries - the number of dead or missing for Indonesia is 167,540 according to the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition's synthesis report, rather than the 167,799 that we use, similarly the number for India in the source is 16,269, rather than the 18,045 that we use - neither of these figures has a citation. I propose to change these to the numbers used in the TEC Synthesis Report - it's the most official thing that we have. In the case of Myanmar the reported higher numbers are anecdotal in nature, although it wouldn't be surprising if the numbers were higher than 61 - I think that we should use 61 and mention that there is some reason for thinking that the number could be significantly higher - just not in the table. That only leaves the number of dead in the Seychelles, where there is only a discrepancy of one. I also intend to add the general disclaimer from the TEC report - "It should be remembered that all such data are subject to error, as data on missing persons especially are not always as good as one might wish". Mikenorton (talk) 19:42, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Memorials
Article lacks listing of memorials worldwide. CapnZapp (talk) 19:08, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Need for substantive rewrite
I did a copyedit of noted sections for grammar, style, clarity, and to a lesser extent removing redundancies and extraneous detail.

I find the entry is less encyclopedic and more of a data report in style and content. Consider the following: - the need for extensive edit to remove extraneous detail. - to the extent wave height and other technical data are deemed necessary, put in tabular form. Robertnola (talk) 15:34, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2019
Change damage done from 2.9 billion US dollars to 15 billion US dollars, as mentioned in the source. Ibrahim774 (talk) 12:50, 23 January 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thank you, Dawnseeker2000  13:01, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done by Dawnseeker2000 DannyS712 (talk) 15:33, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Energy release
Energy release is not 110 PJ but 2.8-5.6 EJ. It is simply obtained by usint the formula 10^(1.5*M + 4.8) Joules. M is 9.1-9.3. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GS-216.1993 (talk • contribs) 12:14, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * According to Lay et al. (2005) the total energy radiated by seismic waves was 1.1 EJ. In another paper Kanamori (2006), Kanamori comes up with an estimate of 298 PJ, remarking "The value of ER obtained here is larger than that listed in the U.S.G.S. web site (dead url removed), 1.1x1017 J, and smaller than that listed in Lay et al. [2005], 1.1x1018 J. Many factors contribute to this difference, and the spread of this magnitude is common with preliminary energy determinations." I'll look to see if there's a more recent estimate available, but the value in the article is sourced and none of the sourced estimates I've found so far come close to 2.8-5.6 EJ. Mikenorton (talk) 16:43, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 November 2019
Change of line:

The city experienced the highest number of human casualties, with about 167,000 people perished directly from the tsunami

to:

The city experienced the highest number of human casualties, with about 167,000 people perishing directly from the tsunami

Location is the final sentence in the first paragraph of the Tsunami - Indonesia section. 81.187.152.166 (talk) 12:20, 27 November 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thank you for pointing that out. Mikenorton (talk) 12:27, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 November 2019
Change from:

In Meulaboh, a remote coastal city, was among the hardest hit by the tsunami. to:

Meulaboh, a remote coastal city, was among the hardest hit by the tsunami. 81.187.152.166 (talk) 12:25, 27 November 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thank you. Mikenorton (talk) 12:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 November 2019
Change from:

The island country of Sri Lanka, located about 1,700 km (1056.33 miles) from Sumatra, were ravaged around 2 hours after the earthquake

to:

The island country of Sri Lanka, located about 1,700 km (1056.33 miles) from Sumatra, was ravaged around 2 hours after the earthquake 81.187.152.166 (talk) 12:27, 27 November 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thank you - if you have any more, perhaps include them in a single edit request. Mikenorton (talk) 12:32, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

link to Boxing Day
In the very first sentence, "Boxing Day" should link to Boxing Day. Yeah? 86.24.222.159 (talk) 20:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a Manual of Style entry that states not to link items that are in bold. Since the text in the first line is bolded, it probably hasn't been linked because of that recommendation (WP:BOLDAVOID). If you can find somewhere else in the article to link it, please go ahead. Dawnseeker2000  22:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't go ahead, because the article is protected. But anyway, that recommendation says "Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence". "Boxing Day" isn't in the reiteration of the title, it is after it. 86.24.222.159 (talk) 00:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough, Manual_of_Style itself has an example of a bolded link (and the word is "links"!). 86.24.222.159 (talk) 01:07, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 June 2020
Tamil Nadu is not a country, its a State of India. 182.77.123.45 (talk) 17:20, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. TheImaCow (talk) 17:46, 7 June 2020 (UTC)


 * If you're referring to the lead section, it includes a list of the places most affected, followed in each case by the country in which they are located - there's nothing to imply that Tamil Nadu is a country. Mikenorton (talk) 20:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 October 2020
Please remove this:

had the longest duration of faulting ever observed; between eight and ten minutes.

and add this:

had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between eight and ten minutes.

Semicolons are supposed to separate examples (a; b; c) or to join independent clauses, but this isn't an appropriate use of a semicolon. 64.203.186.103 (talk) 19:49, 22 October 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅. A colon might be possible here too, but whatever. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 22:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 December 2020
Just want to modify a sentence that's probably misleading about something I personally know. BadrajithM (talk) 04:12, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Dawnseeker2000  04:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Grammatical change in lead
The link in the lead to the list of deadliest natural disasters should read this:

"...the deadliest natural disaster in the 21st century"

instead of this:

"...the deadliest natural disasters in the 21st century".

It is a small mistake, but definitely jarring. CMtheo (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

✅ - Thanks for pointing that out. Mikenorton (talk) 23:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Most memorable pictures and videos
There are several memorable images and videos: A longshot of the coast at a Thailand beach filled with dead bodies and two videos: One of someone standing on a table in a restaurant porch and holding tightly to a pole, the other from the hotel watching the water come up and take houses with it. Can you help me find them? They should be linked in external media.פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 05:04, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

"Terra Research" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Terra Research. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 5 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Jay (talk) 18:46, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 July 2021
Idonotspachetti (talk) 20:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC) Please accept it
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself.   Mel ma nn   21:11, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 August 2021
indie

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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Semi-protected edit request on 6 October 2022
Please remove the United States Geological Survey has so far not changed its estimate of 9.1. The source is a 2006 study; it's not a reliable source for whether the USGS changed any estimates between 2006 and 2022. 120.17.176.212 (talk) 06:55, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done:, added a 2022 reference for that statement instead. 3mi1y (talk) 07:37, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 October 2022 (2)
In this sentence:

The seismic waves of the earthquake were felt across the planet; as far away as the U.S. state of Oklahoma, where vertical movements of 3 mm (0.12 in) were recorded.

Please remove "where", since it's incorrect unless a further clause comes after the "where" clause. 120.17.176.212 (talk) 07:09, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ish, semicolon -> colon makes it make sense as written. 3mi1y (talk) 07:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 October 2022 (3)
Please remove this sentence:

The exact amount is not yet known, but theoretical models suggest the earthquake shortened the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds, due to a decrease in the oblateness of the Earth.

and replace it with this:

Weeks after the earthquake, theoretical models suggested the earthquake shortened the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds, due to a decrease in the oblateness of the Earth.

The source is from 10 January 2005. At the time, the exact amount was unknown, but such a source can't speak to the state of knowledge 17½ years later. 120.17.176.212 (talk) 07:12, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ 3mi1y (talk) 07:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 October 2022 (4)
In this sentence:

the tsunami first arrived as a small flood, which swept away cars and unexpected people.

Please replace "unexpected" with "surprised", as "unexpected" is not a transitive verb. 120.17.176.212 (talk) 07:19, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ 3mi1y (talk) 07:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 October 2022 (5)
In this sentence:

A video recorded by locals showed the tsunami flooding the beach and villages causing despair amongst the villagers.

Please add a comma after "villages". Otherwise, it sounds like the video shows (1) the tsunami flooding the beach, and (2) villages causing despair amongst the villagers. 120.17.176.212 (talk) 07:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ 3mi1y (talk) 07:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)