The day of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean – level 2

26-12-2004

It was Sunday morning, on December 26, 2004. The beaches in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other places began to fill with people. Thousands of people spent their dream holiday there.

On the west coast of Sumatra, there was a big earthquake 30 kilometers below the earth’s surface. The seafloor of the Indian Ocean was pushed up, and millions of tons of water started to move.

The water was travelling at a speed of 800 kilometers per hour. In some places, the tsunami was 30 meters high. The tsunami came to the beaches quickly and unexpectedly. Many people had no time to run away to a higher ground. In some places, the tsunami went 2 kilometers inland.

The tsunami destroyed many areas near the sea. It took 220,000 lives in 14 countries and it left 1.5 million people homeless.

Difficult words: fill (to make something more and more full), sea floor (the ground at the bottom of the ocean), tsunami (the Japanese word for a very big wave), unexpectedly (without expectation), inland (a place not near the sea).

What are the short- and long-term effects that the 2004 tsunami had on the places it affected?

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