The earthquake measuring 9.0 magnitude struck the western end of Indonesia's Sumatra Island on the 26th of December 2004 at 6:58 a.m. local time, flattening buildings and sending a wall of water higher than the tops of coconut palms into the towns and villages in the province of Aceh. The epicenter was located 155 miles southeast of the provincial capital of Banda Aceh and 200 miles west of Medan, Sumatra.

The 9.0 magnitude quake was the strongest in 40 years and the fourth- most-powerful since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tsunamis also left thousands injured, thousands missing and hundreds of thousands homeless in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

"This tsunami is not the biggest in recorded history, but the effects may be the biggest ever because many more people live in exposed areas than ever before...." //Jan Egeland (Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator)

It is the fourth-largest earthquake since such measurements began in 1899, according to the NEIC, tying with a 1952 quake in Kamchatka, Russia. More than 25,000 people have been reported dead in Sri Lanka. Most of them, authorities said, were in the eastern district of Batticaloa. Thousands were missing and more than a half million displaced.

In southern Sri Lanka, 200 prisoners escaped when the waves swept away a high-security prison in Matara. Witnesses in the eastern Sri Lankan port city Trincomalee reported 14 meter (40-foot) waves hitting inland as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles).

The Sri Lankan government declared a state of emergency, and, along with the government of the Maldives, has requested international assistance, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

IAS Programme Coordinator Daniel Zetterlund in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami crisis

IAS is getting involved in the Tsunami Crisis in Asia by implementation of Water, Sanitation and Relief activities on Sri Lanka.

Donors	Sectors	Amount
Danida	Water/Sanitation/Relief	1,000,000 DKK
SMR/Sida	Water/Sanitation	600,000 SEK
Danish Mission Council	Relief	200,000 DKK
Churches in Denmark	Relief	100,000 DKK
Churches in Sweden	Water/Sanitation/Relief	60,000 SEK