On December 26th 2004 at 7:58:53 local time (00:58:53 UTC) a large eathquake (9.0 on the Richter scale) occured at 3.316°N, 95.854°E. The earthquake was 310 miles west of Medan in Sumatra. The resultant tsunami has caused widespread devastation over a large area impacting many countries but including India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

UNEP-WCMC are providing an Interactive Map Service (IMAPS) for the benefit of the relief effort. This can be accessed from here.

UNEP-WCMC are part of the UNEP Crisis Task Force which is being co-ordinated by the Post Conflict Assessment Unit of UNEP based in Geneva.

Assessment Guidelines for Tsunami damage to Coral Reefs

UNEP-WCMC outputs

• Ecosystems and Protected Areas
  

UNEP Website

• After the Tsunami: Rapid Environmental Assessment
• Tsunami Video News Release

Press Releases

• Rebuild Differently After the Tsunami, UNEP Advises
  (UNEP 22 February 2005)
• Water Shortages and Global Warming Risks for Indian Ocean Islands
  (UNEP 6 January 2005)
• Natural and Man-made Disasters Threaten Stability of Small Island Developing States
  (UNEP 6 January 2005)
• Environmental Issues Emerging from Wreckage of Asian Tsunami
  (UNEP Thursday 30 December 2004)

UNEP-WCMC Links

World Atlas of Coral Reefs	World Atlas of Seagrasses
Mangroves of East Africa	2003 UN List of Protected Areas

Organisation Links

• UNEP Website
• BirdLife International - Impact statement; preliminary assessment

• Geodata.gov - The geodata.gov portal, also known as the Geospatial One-Stop, serves as a public gateway for improving access to geospatial information
• GeographyNetwork.com - A global network of geographic information users and providers. It provides the infrastructure needed to support the sharing of geographic information among data providers, service providers, and users around the world.

• Disasters Charter http://www.disasterscharter.org
• CRISP http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/tsunami/tsunami.html
• Darmouth Observatory http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/
• DigitalGlobe http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/tsunami/Banda_Aceh_Tsunami_Damage.pdf
• DLR http://www.zki.caf.dlr.de/applications/2004/indian_ocean/indian_ocean_2004_en.html
• NRSA http://www.nrsa.gov.in/
• SERTIT http://sertit.u-strasbg.fr/documents/asie/asia_en.html
• UNOSAT http://unosat.web.cern.ch/unosat/asp/default.asp
• USGS http://gisdata.usgs.gov/website/Disaster_Response

• Post Tsunami - Regional Change Analysis based on Medium Resolution Satellite data
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