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Shifting Ground

2009

Simeulue Island, off the north coast of Sumatra, was changed by the Indian Ocean Tsunami in ways both immediately obvious and not. The rupture that caused the December 2004 earthquake also brought about a balance of uplift and subsidence along the Sunda Megathrust that thrust Simeulue out of the water. Three months later, a second tsunami hit southern Simeulue. Wave heights were higher in some locations than they had been in December, but parts of the island sustained less damage because land once submerged was uplifted by December’s tectonic event, thus increasing its height above sea level and making it less susceptible in the March 28, 2005 tsunami.

Just thought that was interesting.

 

Below documented is some of the "new" landscape consequent of Simelue's new topography.

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