Week 7 - Assignment 3: Research Presentation

Running head: PHUKET THAILAND 2004 BOXING DAY TSUNAMI 1

PHUKET THAILAND 2004 BOXING DAY TSUNAMI

Week 5 Assignment #Outline: Phuket Thailand 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami

1. Introduction

· Research topic: The Phuket Thailand Tsunami

· Date of Occurrence: 26th December 2004

· Place(s) Occurred: Phuket Island.

· The tsunami struck the west coast of Phuket Island.

· It started in Similan Islands. This was the place where it was noticed first in the soil of Thailand.

· Victims of the Event: Native Thais and Foreigners (tourists)

· Relevance: Tsunamis are some of the world’s deadly weather events alongside flooding and earthquake just to mention a few.

· Importance: It was a national calamity affecting many regions around the Phuket Island destroying a lot of properties, killing a lot of people and leaving many others badly injured.

1. Research and Discussion

1. Weather Journal: Atmospheric condition

2. Weather Event:  During the 2004 Tsunami, Thailand had no quick data analysis or the ground warning systems were in place, and so there was no prediction of the calamity.

3. Causation (Dettmer et al., 2016).

i. Tsunamis are usually series of large waves engendered by a sudden movement on the ocean floor. Most of them emanates from earthquakes. However, they can also be caused by volcanic eruptions, underwater landslide, even—though rare—, large meteorite strike.

ii. The 2004 Phuket Tsunami was by an undersea earthquake of magnitude of range from 9.1 to 9.3. The Tsunami is the third most powerful to have ever been recorded in the history of humanity (Nam, 2018).

4. Societal Impacts

i. Short-Tem Impacts

a. Many people lost their lives, got displaced and other went missing. After the tsunami, the Government of Thailand reported 4,812 deaths, 8,457, injuries, and 4,499 missing people (Nam, 2018). In the popular Phuket Tourist Resort, 250 people were confirmed dead, among them tourists.

b. Power lines and other economic properties were also damaged. Also causing some inland flooding, the tsunami brought down power lines causing power outrage in the region as well as destroying properties among them the main beaches of Phuket Island including Kata Beach, Patong, Karon, and Kamala are some of the properties that were damaged.

ii. Long-Term Impacts

a. The tourism sector was damaged.

· Tourism restores such as the Phuket resort were destroyed.

· Tourists also considered Thailand as a high-risk place to be on vocation.

b. Local fishing industry was affected as boats were destroyed

c. Many people were left homeless and unemployed due to the destruction of homes and workplaces and business organization such as Phuket Resort (Nam, 2018).

d. Public infrastructure such transport systems were destroyed.

e. Environmentally, the tsunami affected sanitation due to sewage spills, marine life destruction (the nesting beaches of sea turtles were destroyed due to erosion), food crops were damaged by saline water (Szczuciński et al. (2012).

f. Generally, this tsunami made Thailand and especially the west coast of Phuket Island a hell to be for both the Thais and the tourists. Many of the natives felt the place was not safe for them to be. The loss of their loved ones only helped to pile fear in them that the nightmare could also occur in the future again. On the other hand, tourists reconsidered going to Thailand for vocations. To them, Thailand was unsafe and no one would want to come fly from their home countries to go and get killed with a tsunami in Thailand.

5. Weather Readiness (Tomotsuka, Kazumasa, & Fumihiko, 2018).

(i) Establishing research and detection centers

(ii) Establishing tsunami communication centers for communication of tsunami patterns and warnings (it may be through weather radios or weather apps or the media)

(iii) Developing tsunami evacuation and recovery centers for education and training on evacuation plans, safe places to evacuate to, and how to evacuate (Melgar et al., 2016).

6. The Conclusion Section

The Phuket Thailand Tsunami is one of the largest tsunami and natural hazards to have ever happened in the history of unity. Happening in the west coast of the Phuket Island in Thailand, the weather event caused massive damages killing many people and destroying a lot of properties. The impact it had on Thailand is unforgettable. Other than destroying its tourism reputation regarding security and safety, for a case in point, the tsunami left the Thais in bitterness and suffering due to the loss of their loved ones as well as the fear that it could happen again in the future. While natural hazards cannot be prevented, their impacts can be mitigated once they occur. The strategies include detecting the hazards in good time and warning the public to get to safe areas in time. As such, Thailand should be on the fore front to predict future tsunamis to be safe. The topic was relevant and important because Tsunamis are some of the natural weather events that are fatal when they occur.

References

Dettmer, J., Hawkins, R., Cummins, P. R., Hossen, J., Sambridge, M., Hino, R., & Inazu, D. (2016). Tsunami source uncertainty estimation: The 2011 Japan tsunami. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 121(6), 4483-4505.

Tomotsuka, T., Kazumasa, K., & Fumihiko, I. (2018). Tsunami: to survive from tsunami (Vol. 46). World Scientific.

Melgar, D., Allen, R. M., Riquelme, S., Geng, J., Bravo, F., Baez, J. C., ... & Bevis, M. (2016). Local tsunami warnings: Perspectives from recent large events. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(3), 1109-1117.

Nam, S., (2018). Tsunamis in Thailand. Retrieved from https://www.tripsavvy.com/tsunamis-in-thailand-1658242

Szczuciński, W., Rachlewicz, G., Chaimanee, N., Saisuttichai, D., Tepsuwan, T., Lorenc, S., (2012). 26 December 2004 tsunami deposits left in areas of various tsunami run up in coastal zone of Thailand. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.5047/eps.2012.07.007#citeas