7. On Boxing Day 2004, an Earthquake and Tsunami in the Indian Ocean wiped out at least 225, 000 people
The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 is still a by-word for the callousness and immense power of nature. On Boxing Day that year, at 7.59am local time, an undersea earthquake with a staggering magnitude of 9.1 shook the hell out of the earth near the coast of Sumatra. There followed a Tsunami that lasted 7 hours, with waves as high as 30 feet (9 metres), so powerful that East Africa felt its force. Worst hit however were Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Maldives. In all, 225, 000 people lost their lives in the disaster.
South East Asia relies heavily on tourism, and Christmas was a particularly bad time of year for the Tsunami to strike. The thousands of hotels in the region were full to the brim with tourists, and so the area was at its highest level of population that Boxing Day morning. The very conditions that attracted the tourists to the area – isolation, minimal modern intrusions, the beautiful ocean – proved deadly, as it they left the area vulnerable to the Tsunami and incredibly difficult for urgent medical assistance to reach. As mentioned in the introduction, nature has no respect for human traditions.