Per­haps the most destruc­tive tsuna­mi in his­to­ry killed about 230,000 peo­ple and engulfed Indi­an Ocean coastal areas in 12 coun­tries on Decem­ber 26, 2004. 

The Suma­tra-Andaman earth­quake, also known as the Box­ing Day Tsuna­mi, start­ed as a mas­sive under­sea 9.1 mag­ni­tude earth­quake off the island of Suma­tra, Indone­sia. Ban­da Aceh on the island’s north­ern tip lost about 170,000 peo­ple as the tsuna­mi trav­elled inland. 

Com­mu­ni­ties and dis­as­ter agen­cies have learned lessons and made many improve­ments in the last decade includ­ing greater aware­ness, pre­pared­ness and warn­ing systems. 

The earth­quake caused a tsuna­mi that led to the deaths in coun­tries bor­der­ing the Indi­an Ocean. Indone­sia was hard hit, fol­lowed by India, Sri Lan­ka and Thai­land. The waves reached the Mal­dives, Myan­mar, Malaysia, Soma­lia, Tan­za­nia, Sey­chelles, Bangladesh and Kenya. 

Tsunami’s are rare in the Indi­an Ocean, catch­ing many by sur­prise. They are most preva­lent in the Pacific. 

Memo­r­i­al ser­vices were held in a num­ber of places on the 10th anniver­sary.  Dur­ing the dis­as­ter, com­mu­ni­ca­tions were lost or severe­ly dis­rupt­ed. It was the ham radio oper­a­tor com­mu­ni­ty in many coun­tries that helped to reunite fam­i­lies and assist in relief operations. 

A major effort was mount­ed by the Radio Soci­ety of Sri Lan­ka (RSSL). On its web­site it recalled the occa­sion. The world’s biggest train dis­as­ter also occurred in the Sri Lan­ka town of Pere­liya when a train was washed off the rails by the tsuna­mi, killing 802 peo­ple. The repaired and refur­bished train ran on Decem­ber 26 2014, on that same sched­ule to remem­ber this great tragedy. 

The RSSL oper­at­ed dis­as­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions points between the Prime Min­is­ters offi­cial res­i­dence and com­mu­ni­ca­tions cen­tre and three coastal towns, before any oth­er communications. 

It won the Gold­en Anten­na Award for deliv­er­ing dis­as­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions.  The pres­ti­gious award bestowed on the RSSL and its Pres­i­dent Vic­tor Goonetilleke 4S7VK, was for the out­stand­ing work dur­ing the tsuna­mi disaster. 

The Ger­man town of Bad Ben­theim presents the ‘Gold­en Anten­na’ award to recog­nise the use of Ama­teur Radio tech­nol­o­gy in con­nec­tion with human­i­tar­i­an work. 

The Andaman and Nico­bar Islands (VU4) DXpe­di­tion was also sus­pend­ed to pro­vide coor­di­na­tion for dis­as­ter relief.  Sim­i­lar emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions by radio ama­teurs occurred elsewhere. 

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.