Banda Aceh, Indonesia, 20 years on
Simon Urwin (Credit: Simon Urwin) On 26 December 2004 at 07:59 local time, a magnitude 9.1 undersea earthquake struck 240km west of Sumatra, Indonesia, rupturing the greatest fault length of any recorded earthquake (1,500km long), and releasing energy equivalent to 23,000 atomic bombs. The tsunami waves it triggered spread across the Indian Ocean at speeds…