Boxing Day tsunami: here’s what we have learned in the 20 years since the deadliest natural disaster in modern history

By Ravindra Jayaratne, Reader in Coastal Engineering, University of East London
Tomoya Shibayama, Emeritus Professor of Coastal Engineering, Waseda University

On Boxing Day 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia set off a tsunami which killed almost 250,000 people. It was the deadliest natural disaster this century, and was probably the deadliest tsunami in human history.

As coastal engineers who specialise in tsunamis and how to prepare for them, we have seen how the events of 2004 reshaped our global disaster management systems. Among the lessons learned since that…

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