Where and when did it happen? What happened? What caused it to happen?
Near the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia on Sunday morning on 26th of December 2004 an earthquake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale caused a series of severe tsunamis. 3.316° N and 95.854° E were the coordinates of the Earthquake’s epicenter. With its high magnitude of about 9.0, it is one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded on the seismograph. This earthquake had the longest duration as it lasted for about 10 minutes. The reasons why the tsunami was so devastating because is because there wasn’t any good evacuation plans and warning system in the countries affected by the natural hazard. Therefore people weren’t able to move fast into higher grounds and could not escape the powerful wave of rushing water and its load. Unlike the animals that fled the scene and rushed for safety the curious people stayed and watched the strange incident. Therefore they were killed by the tsunami. This earthquake occurred because of the collision of the Indian and Burmese plates.
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This shows the epicenter of the earthquake and places affected by the tsunami and the earthquake.
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Who and what regions were affected? Why do people live in hazard prone regions?
The countries that were affected by the tsunami were Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. The disaster had caused a great deal of damage. The casualties were 229,886 deaths, 42,500 missing, and hundreds of thousands were injured. Not only that but some people were traumatized after the loss of family members, their livelihoods, and their homes. The areas that were damaged most were countries that lied close to the epicenter and in this case were Sumatra, Indonesia. (http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/2258)
A reason why people live in earthquake hazard prone areas which in this case would be in the coasts of Sumatra, Indonesia because they have their jobs their, too poor to move, and few have few job opportunities in other places. But in this case there are not many occurrences of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, at least not as severe as this one. People who usually have to suffer the most from natural hazards occurring near the oceans and seas were the fisherman because their livelihoods depend on them. Most of them are also not well-educated so there are not many job opportunities for them if they were to move. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_ Tsunami)


The tsunami wiped out most houses, roads and water and electricity in the province of Aceh.
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What was the result? What are the effects of the hazard? How are effects different between LEDCs and MEDCs?

There were many short and long term effects of the tsunami. The most disastrous effects were thousand deaths, injured, and missing. The long term effects were that many things were destroyed which were roads, bridges, electrical supplies, health centers, and even schools were destroyed. All these things required a lot of construction and would take a great deal of time to get everything back to the way they were and build them so that it can withstand tsunamis. The problem was that the countries were hit by a series of tsunamis so it was hard to get people to evacuate as there was no plan. Not only that but the countries that were hit by the tsunamis was not MEDCs and was LEDCs such as Indonesia. Since, the countries that were hit by the tsunamis were LEDCs therefore it took a lot of time to recover from the hazard. Recovery was also very slow because the land in the countries was filled with millions of tones of debris. Luckily in this incident the countries hit were lucky about the fact that Australia being an MEDC donated 345 million dollars and also helped by giving supplies, helping with medical attention, e.t.c. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_ Tsunami)

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What is being done about it? Possible prevention methods? Were/are there any volunteer programs to help?
The island of Sumatra being the most devastated region after the horrific tsunami made the recovery a humungous task. President Aceh put the Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) to manage the project and oversee every part of it. The BRR felt that a lot of the responsibility should be given to the people in the communities to volunteer and give their time to help the recovery faster. Lots of people were volunteering and this caused a problem in one way because everybody was giving their ideas so that meant that the decision making was very slow. BRR finally changed their approach as they saw that very little things were getting done in a lot of time. So the organization got financial support from the governments and started to hire skilled workers and assign them to a task so they hired nurses, health administrators, and volunteered midwives to help the people who needed the medical attention. The BRR got the men who volunteered to help build the roads, restores parts of building, and help deliver medical supplies including food, medical supplies, water, and school equipments. Australia of all countries were the most generous to help Sumatra and gave financial help as they donated 345 million dollars. Not only did they give financial help bit they also gave food, personnel, and medical aide. The BRR clumsily did not focus their attention on the fact that disease could easily spread so the Australians decided that it would be their biggest necessity. Even though the tsunami had occurred hours after the earthquake m=many of the victims were taken by surprise. Indonesia being a LEDC means that the tsunami warning systems were not advanced and the fact that the earthquake had occurred deep in the water made it extremely hard to detect. Tsunamis occurring more often in the Pacific Ocean’s “Ring of Fire” made the Indonesians put their warning system their but not in the Indian Ocean, which was where this earthquake had occurred. In the aftermath of the disaster the BRR realized that there should be a warning system in the Indian Ocean if a disaster like this were to occur again. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_ Tsunami)
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Everybody has just got to hope that history will not repeat itself and that nobody will be facing such a terrible tsunami ever again.

Bibliography
These websites are extremely useful if you would like to know specific detail about the tsunami.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_ Tsunami)
(http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/2258)