ABSTRACT
The India plate was pushing against the Burma plate as it Buzzers went off at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. It was an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.5. The worst earthquakes are level 9.0 and above. had for thousands of years. But on December 26, 2004, the plates ruptured, causing a rip in the ocean floor more than 600 miles long. Rocks, boulders, and ocean floor burst up as a massive earthquake shook the ground. This was a gigantic earthquake right in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In 2004, 90% of the people in the affected area of the Thailand tsunami were killed. In comparison, when the Tohoku tsunami struck Japan in 2011, only 10% of the people in the affected area died.
