Indonesian Tsunami by Thomas Schwarzrock

On September 28th, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake formed a tsunami in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The major earthquake and three separate waves destroyed thousands of homes, and took upwards of 1,200 lives. The tallest of the waves that formed was estimated to be around 20 feet tall, which then swept buildings off their settlement, and reeking havoc on the coastline. What is unsettling about this tsunami, is that they had the chance to prepare for it, but because of various reasons, they were left with thousands of innocent people dead. Fourteen years ago, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake released an incredible, 60 foot tsunami upon the northern province of Aceh in Indonesia. Following this, Indonesia, with the help and funding of other countries such as Germany and the United States created an early warning system for tsunamis. It consisted of twenty two high-tech buoys that could sense when a tsunami was forming. Unfortunately, fish were attracted to the electric signals given off by the buoys, which led to fishermen following them. The buoys were not well maintained, and some of the fishermen even scrapped the copper for extra cash. A smaller tsunami in 2016 proved that none of the buoys worked properly anymore, and were worthless. This is troubling since the reason so many people had been killed (the death toll up to almost 1,350) is because of lack of funding and care for these systems, even after 227,898 people from many different countries around the Indian ocean had died in the terrible earthquake and tsunami of 2004. Relief efforts have long been underway for the disaster since late September, and they had helped initially by finding victims trapped in collapsed home or buried in the mud, however they now working mostly on rebuilding and repairing. This calamity was devastating, and hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime event.