At 00:58:53 UTC or almost 9 am Malaysian time on 26 December 2004 there was a humongous earthquake with a MMS (Moment magnitude scale) of 9.1 to 9.3 off the west coast of Sumatra.
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Wikipedia says: It was the 3rd largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 centimetre (0.4 inches) and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.
The earthquake triggered tsunami along the coasts of the Indian Ocean killing approximately (officially) 250,000 people, but unofficially the death toll could be far far worse as many deaths were either not reported or not even known.
Penang Island and some parts of the Kedah coast were affected, with deaths recorded in the former.
Then (2005) there were numerous hue and cries in Malaysia about the frightening natural disaster. A Lebanese news media reported that some muftis in the Gulf countries claimed the SE Asian Muslims were divinely punished for their sins.
Like most Gulf countries, Midas-rich but King Scrooge Kuwait (an Islamic nation) initially made a paltry donation of US$2 million, considerably far less than the contribution of US$10 million by Michael Schumacher, a Christian individual, before it was shamed by Arab newspapers into increasing its donation, but alas not by much.
Indeed, Arab nations ignored or gave very pathetic amount in aid to their Muslim brethren in devastated Indonesia in shameful comparison to Christian Australia who gave A$1 Billion.
Christian infidels like American Sandra Bullock herself gave US$1 million and, as mentioned above, German Michael Schumacher as an individual donated US$10 million.
By staggering contrast, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans those Muslim Arabs gave hundreds and hundreds of millions in American dollars (eg. Kuwait alone gave US$500 million) to the USA. Presumably the natives of New Orleans were less sinful than Sumatran Muslims.
Malaysians learnt what a tsunami was and how devastating it could be for people living along the our nation's coasts.
There arose a fervour of anxiety cum enthusiasm about implementing a tsunami alert system in Malaysia.
It's now 13 years after the horror which wiped out hundreds of thousands of lives in Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, Andaman Islands, Sri Lanka, India, etc, and even as far as Somalia.
Any practice drill since then?
