Lessons following tragedies

remembering the Boxing Day quake

Twenty years ago today a 9.1 magnitude earthquake, setting into motion catastrophic effects which ultimately devastated populiations in seventeen nearby countries around the Indian Ocean. The earthquake’s epicenter was close to the northwestern Indonesian island of Sumatra. I recall reports of deaths doubling hourly for the first day. The ultimate death toll surpassed more than a quarter of a million people, most innocently murdered not by the temblor itself but by drowning during the resulting tsunami which washed over everything in its way with towering waves.

Video clips of the massive walls of water remain sickening two decades after they destroyed entire communities from Malaysia around Thailand across towards India’s Andaman Islands, the already water-prone country of Bangladesh across eastern and southeastern India, Sri Lanka, and to the eastern shores of the African continent. Curiously, I never saw any death reports from Myanmar, probably because the military government (before the brief political opening a decade later) simply was uninterested in (or incapable of) checking coastal communities, fearful of the further damage to national reputation because of their inability to rescue those trapped, or some other bizarre explanation for an inexplicable silence on fatalities that surely villages on the Irrawaddy delta as it emptied in to the I.O.

Imagine how much higher the statistics will be in future tsunamis as climate change raises water levels further. Yet I also recall this tragedy for the beneficial effects we also witnessed, reminders that tragedies can improve some aspects of lives.

The most enduring lesson garnered from this tragedy was the need to share information—something we actually do on social media—instantaneously but in this case through emergency management channels and danger alerts. This sounds so elementary in a danger zone yet it bears repeating. Had the communities along Thai coast, teaming in late December especially with European holiday-makers craving warm air, sunshine, and a distant location, known that Mother Nature’s unavoidably mounting waves were heading ashore with unrelenting speed, officials could have alerted tourists to find higher locations, if not evacuate coastal areas to the best of their abilities. Instead, too many people were caught completely unaware this impending disaster was overtaking them. Without warnings, some tourists walked towards the gathering walls of water without recognizing why the water was flowing out to sea in an odd movement. Sirens could have notified those on the ground to move as the compounding waves building ever higher as they snapped back into the shore lines but there were no alert systems in place.

Today, as recently as last week with a much less consequential earthquake near northern California, tsunami warnings automatically go out across the world. Physics always wins so the precious minutes and hours that alerts provide give options lacking for those sunning themselves or swimming innocently that Sunday morning in 2004. But the key factor is that warnings are now going out as soon as geologists confirm earthquakes and their magnitude to notify coastal communities across of the globe of potential “rogue” waves in the form of tsunamis.

The enhanced coordination from the 2004 tragedy definitely led to somewhat better reactions seven years later when the tsunami resulting from the 11 March earthquake in eastern Japan led both to a meltdown of the nuclear reactors and a significant wave phenomenon across the Pacific. While Japanese officials might well have reacted more effectively than those in other countries because Japan regularly confronts earthquakes (never an inevitable conclusion since the 1996 Kobe response was disappointing), the 2011 messaging was clearer, more immediate, and targeted to assure communities under threat grasp the danger.

One of the other effects of 2004 was to remind all of us of the value of HA/DR support to the victims across the region. This manifested in two ways. First, China’s utter inability to offer support in 2004 reflected badly on a nation claiming to be a world leader. Superpowers, as the New Yorker’s David Remnick said many years ago in a quote for which I cannot find the citation, go beyond their own needs to think of others while big states simply self-absorb. Remnick argued this was what separated us as a true global superpower from Russia or China. Beijing, in fact, could not respond in 2004 nor did it do much better in 2013 when Typhoon Hagupit destroyed a swath of the Philippines.

This embarrassment contributed to Beijing’s concerted efforts to build and deploy hospital ships for HA/DR as well as routine “presence”. Without the obvious gap between U.S. and PLAN capabilities in 2004, China would have delayed that choice further as it pursued other priorities in naval modernization. But recognizing its own futility at taking a prominent support role in recovery and aid/assist efforts became something more “immediately” of value to the PLAN and the CCP. This was an example of the“crossing the bridge by feeling the stones”—do the next thing you cannot avoid—as much as planning out for decades in CCP and PLAN thinking.

For the United States, our Navy’s 2004 rescue mission left a decidedly positive memory of how military power can advance national interests far beyond conflict. The Navy sent the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with the USS Bonhomme Richard, to the waters near Sumatra where devastation was profound. In addition, the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship, provided medical assistance for more than three months to the thousands unable to rely on their own governments or private aid organizations. For too many afflicted by this disaster, these were the only steps taken on their behalf because the tragedy was so vast. That the United States, a nation far away across the seas, would volunteer to assist was noted upon and remembered for a generation.

This Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief operation focused on providing immediate aid and comfort to those devastated by both the earthquake and the resulting waves. But the HA/DR mission was a reminder that U.S. military personnel and equipment are on station around the world 365 days annually. The effort left a memory on those in need that food, assistance, rescue technology, and overall reconstruction and clean up efforts are not part of some quid pro quo but a measure of Americans’ realization that tragedies can be consequences of actions no one controls.

The U.S. Navy also learned from the 2004 crisis. The lessons of what worked, how to alter deployments, and how to effectively support those in need as well as working in conjunction with other militaries became a part of our maritime strategy. In a vast area of responsibility, these lessons invariably provide a cheaper way to improve than on-the-job training in crisis mode.

Sadly, the huge 2011 Japan earthquake was not the last of these lethal waves—nor could it have been since the earth’s crust is constantly moving and huge earthquakes occur more regularly than we perhaps realize. But the improvements made across the global community on alerts to notify those in the potential path of the devastation are markedly improved twenty years hence. In this particular instance, however, the complication of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown was a reminder that no two crises are the same but the lessons learned from one can build towards answering challenges during the follow on.

The emergency notification network developed in response to 2004 rests on global science cooperation rather than competition. Scientists’ ability to work in tandem across the vast span of the oceans is vital but cannot be taken for granted in this era of political competition. One would like to assume that gravity of humanitarian need outweighs political and economic preferences but that seems dangerously unlikely. As a country with vast coastlines that protect us, Americans would do well to recall those coastlines also prove dangerous (Hurricane “Katrina” merely months after the Boxing Day earthquake bore that out) when forces beyond human control unleash consequences that can endanger thousands within an extremely short time with no power to prevent these events. Cooperation on information and execution of survival protocols in the face of political aspiration could mean the difference between life and death.

Often what separates us from the rest of the world is our willingness to help those in need with our personal finances and our know how, even when we get nothing directly or measurably in return. It’s who we are and have always been.

I don’t wish another Boxing Day quake on anyone but it’s worth valuing what we did learn for future generations to apply.

Actions really do have consequences.

I welcome your thoughts on this or any other column. Sadly, the consequences of unimaginable tragedies bind us together perhaps more immediately than any other events. I wonder what you recall about that shocking event.

I appreciate your time in reading this during the busy holiday season. I especially thank those of you who are subscribers willing to support this effort financially. I welcome your paid subscription as a monthly, yearly, or founding member of Actions Create Consequences.

It is rather blah in the Chesapeake today so I have offer no stunning sunrise. I do offer a Christmas cactus I hope will remind you of the joy of the season.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Andrea H. Cameron, “The Legacy of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami on U.S. Maritime Strategy”, CIMSEC, 1 April 2016, retrieved at https://cimsec.org/legacy-2004-indian-ocean-earthquake-tsunami-maritime-strategy/

William Davis, Madison Dong, Judson Jones, John Keefe, and Bea Malaki, “Map: 7.0-Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Northern California”, NewYorkTimes,com, 12 December 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/05/us/quake-tracker-california.html

Katrina Miller, “On Dec. 26, 2004, a Disaster Affecting 17 Countries and Killing 230,000 People”, NewYorkTimes.com, 26 December 2024, retrieved at

“Tsunami-Caught on Camera [full program] 12/26/2004, YouTube.com, retrieved at https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=IISqzpsuq7c

“2004-2005-Thailand (Operation Unified Assistance): Twenty-first Century Humanitarian Actions”, National Museum of the U.S. Navy, retrieved at https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/humanitarian/21st-century/2000-2009/2004-2005-thailand-operation-unified-assistance.html