The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami: Impact on and Rehabilitation of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Thailand

Abstract

Southern Thailand, also known as Peninsular Thailand, lies between latitudes 50 and 110 N, and longitudes 980 and 1020 E. It covers an area of 7,153,917 ha and has over 2,705 km of shoreline, with the western coastline facing the Andaman Sea and the eastern coastline facing the Gulf of Thailand – see Figure 2. The result of the phenomenal growth of tourism and fishing is that much of the mangrove and beach forest along the coastal shores have been replaced by human-built infrastructures, such as aquaculture industries and tourist resorts (UNEP, 2005). As a consequence, the coastal areas of southern Thailand have become particularly vulnerable to natural disasters (Thanawood et al., 2006). The earthquake that created the tsunami was the world’s fifth largest, with a magnitude of 9.15 to 9.3 on the Richter scale. It occurred at 00:58:53 (GMT) on Sunday, 26 December, 2004, with the epicenter, at a depth of 30km, just off the west coast of North Sumatera, Indonesia (Harinarayana & Hirata, 2005); see Figure 1. The sudden vertical rise of the seabed by several meters during the quake displaced massive volumes of water, resulting in a devastating tsunami. This seismic sea wave traveled thousands of kilometres across the Indian Ocean, and ravaged the Andaman coast of southern Thailand at 9.30 am local time. The earthquake was the largest since the 1964 Alaska quake, and the fourth biggest this century. The tsunami that ensued was among the five largest recorded, as measured in tsunami magnitude – see Table 1. The waves that hit the Andaman coast were, in some places, as high as 20 metres. The Indian Ocean tsunami was the first in living memory to strike the shorelines of southern Thailand. The tsunami caused extensive damage to life and property in six southern coastal provinces along the Andaman coast of Thailand (Figure 2). The people suffered a total of 5,395 deaths, 8,457 injured and 3,144 missing. The severely affected areas included 292 villages in 78 sub-