On December 26, 2004, a massive tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, killed more than 230,000 people in 14 countries, including more than 170,000 in Indonesia. The tsunami was the deadliest natural disaster in modern history.
While the cause of the earthquake was a mystery, scientists eventually determined that it was caused by the movement of the India tectonic plate beneath the Burma tectonic plate. The India plate is pushing under the Burma plate at …