ABSTRACT
The most destructive tsunami experienced by humanity has now been attributed to the great Indian Ocean Tsunami with death toll around 300,000. This earthquake that triggered the tsunami has changed the scientific considerations and the understanding of hazard globally. Researchers are now geared up in quantifying and understanding all different aspects for the evaluation and assessment of this natural hazard as this event has all the observations recorded and documented. The devastating mega thrust earthquake occurred in a tectonically active region where the Indian plate is subducting beneath the Burmese platelet in the Sunda trench. The focal depth has been estimated to be about 30 km and the length of the fault rupture has been inferred to be about 1300 km. Numerous studies have been carried out to constrain the rupture parameters however, one notable study was using far-field GPS observations where an average of 11 m of reverse slip has been estimated for the southern part of the rupture zone whilst it is about 10 m in the northern part (Catherine et al., 2005).
