10 years on, lessons of Asian tsunami hit by ‘disaster amnesia’

PHUKET, Thailand: Ten years after the deadliest tsunami on record wrought destruction across the Indian Ocean, creeping complacency is undermining a hi-tech warning system designed to prevent another disaster of such shocking magnitude.

In the morning of December 26, 2004 a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia’s western coast generated a series of massive waves that killed more than 220,000 people across 14 countries as far apart as Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Somalia.