Abstract
Abstract The tsunami heights from the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake were between 0.4 and 2.9 m along the Myanmar coast, according to our post tsunami survey at 22 sites in Ayeyarwaddy Delta and the Taninthayi coast. Interviews to coastal residents indicate that the tsunami heights were lower than high tide level in rainy season, probably by storm surge. They also testified that the arrival times were between 2 and 5.5 hours after the earthquake but the reliability may be low because nobody felt ground shaking. Much smaller tsunami than the neighboring Thai coast, where the tsunami heights were 5 to 20 m, explains relatively slighter tsunami damage in Myanmar; the casualties were reported as 71, compared to about 8300 in Thailand. The smaller tsunami was probably due to the fact that the main tsunami source did not extend to Andaman Islands. The tsunami travel times and maximum heights computed from a 700 km long source are basically consistent with the observations. For a nearby tsunami source, the tsunami hazard would be more significant in Myanmar, because coastal houses are unprotected for tsunamis and no infrastructure exists to disseminate tsunami warning information.
Highlights
A giant earthquake occurred off Sumatra Island of Indonesia, at 00:58:53 UTC (07:28 Myanmar time) on December 26, 2004
This earthquake generated a tsunami which devastated the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South India, Thailand, and as far as the east coast of Africa
This paper is to summarize the survey results to document the effect of tsunami along the Myanmar coast
Summary
A giant earthquake occurred off Sumatra Island of Indonesia, at 00:58:53 UTC (07:28 Myanmar time) on December 26, 2004. Our measurement indicated that the tsunami height was 1.8 m above the sea level, or 1.9 m after the correction In this village, 8 casualties and 16 damaged houses are reported. A young man told us that tsunami arrived at 11:45 am, in four waves with 5 minute intervals, and the height was the same as the sea level at the time of our visit. The tsunami height was 1.8 m higher than the high tide level in the morning of March 10 (our measurement day). Ayeyarwaddy Delta through Taninthayi Division reveal that tsunami heights along the Myanmar coast were between 0.4 and 2.9 m and the tsunami arrival times were mostly between 9:30 and 13:00, that is 2 to 5.5 hours after the earthquake (Table 1 and Fig. 8). One of the reasons for the smaller tsunami may be due to the fact that some coast of Taninthayi Division was protected by offshore islands of the Myeik Archipelago trending in the north-south direction
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