In 2004, the third biggest earth quake ever recorded on a seismograph, at between 9.1 and 9.3 on the Richter scale, erupted underneath the Indian Ocean, causing the Indian Ocean Tsunami that killed in excess of 230,000 people and causing billions of dollars worth of water damage in dozens of countries. Indonesia was the very first, and worst place to be hit by the tsunami, whose waves reached as high as a hundred feet and above.

India and Sri Lanka were also on the list of very badly hit places, suffering more than 12,000 and 35,000 deaths. The Tsunami was also observed as far as away as South Africa, where vastly smaller but still measurable waves washed ashore several hours after the initial earth quake, killing atleast eight people.

Additionally an estimated ten million more people had also been left homeless or displaced because of the tsunami. The powerful seismic activity of the earthquake itself shook the whole planet an estimated 1 centimeter, and in addition triggered earthquakes along faults as far away as Alaska.

Granted the severity of water damage suffered by the affected countries, it was also feared that the death toll of over 200,000 may possibly double due to the threat of waterborne illness and disease, which as a result of relief efforts was able to be avoided. Nevertheless, the physical water damage inflicted from the sheer force of the waves, which inundated thousands of kilometers of coastlines on every side of the Indian Ocean, was vast. Entire villages were wiped off the face of the earth and in addition cities experienced incredible damage because of the sheer force of impact and the subsequent flooding.

The scale of the disaster motivated what is by some considered the largest humanitarian response ever conducted. The World Bank initially projected that total relief efforts would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of five billion dollars, USD. Over the next few years, the United States alone offered roughly 350 million dollars to help fund relief efforts.

Even a number of big private corporations, for example Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and BP, all pledged tens of millions of dollars toward recovery efforts in the affected countries. Within a week, about 1.8 billion dollars, USD, had been pledged by various countries throughout the world before relief efforts were relegated to UN control. Though immense, there has still been a big amount of criticism directed towards the US and Europe for their perceived inadequate allocation of funds. Some nations, Sri Lanka in particular criticized donor countries, claiming that they had yet to see any of the pledged donations made by some countries at all.

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