When thousands of locals and tourists were enjoying their usual routine on 26 December 2004, there occurred one devastating natural disaster that shattered the lives of nearly 230,000 people in 14 countries - Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Occurring at 00:58:53 UTC with an epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the scientific community named the event as the Sumatra - Andaman earthquake. The undersea megathrust earthquake took place after the Indian Plate was sub ducted by the Burma Plate triggering life-threatening tsunamis along the coasts of several landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean. This tsunami was also given numerous names by the locals including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Indonesian tsunami, South Asian tsunami, the Christmas tsunami as well as the Boxing Day tsunami. It is considered to be one of the deadliest natural disasters in history and Indonesia was the country affected the most followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand..