Lhoknga (pronunciation hoʔ-ŋa alternative names Lho'nga, Lho-nga, Lhok Nga) is a town within the district of the same name, in

Aceh Besar Regency Great Aceh Regency () is a regency of the Indonesian province of Aceh. The regency covers an area of 2,903.49 square kilometres and had a population of 351,418 at the 2010 Census,Biro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. 391,870 at the 2015 census an ...

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

Special Region,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, located on the western side of the island of

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

, 13 km southwest of

Banda Aceh Banda Aceh (; , Jawi script, Jawi: ) is the capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra and has an elevation of 35 metres. The city covers an area of and had a population of 223,446 peopl ...

. It was completely flattened and destroyed by the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

, where its population dwindled from 7,500 to 400.

Tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

runups following eyewitness accounts of waves were recorded being 35 m in height (waves landing at the height of 35 m), Such high and fast waves arising from the

epicentre The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a s ...

megathrust Megathrust earthquakes occur at convergent plate boundaries, where one tectonic plate is forced underneath another. The earthquakes are caused by slip along the thrust fault that forms the contact between the two plates. These interplate earthqu ...

s were later found to be due to

splay fault Splay may refer to: *Splay, a verb meaning slant, slope or spread outwards * Splay (physiology), the difference between urine threshold and saturation * Splay (Japanese band), a J-pop band from Osaka * Splay Networks, a Sweden-headquartered grou ...

s, secondary faults arising due to cracking of the sea floor to jut upwards in seconds, causing waves' speed and height to increase.Sibuet, J-C., Rangin, C., Le Pichon, X., Singh, S., Cattaneo, A., Graindorge, D., Klingelhoefer, F., Lin, J-Y., Malod, J., Maury, T., Schneider, J-L., Sultan, N., Umber, M., Yamaguchi, H., and the “Sumatra aftershocks” team,
26th December 2004 great Sumatra–Andaman earthquake: Co-seismic and post-seismic motions in northern Sumatra
." ''Earth and Planetary Science Letters.'' Vol. 263, Issues. 1-2, 88-103. November 15, 2007.

Notes and references

{{Aceh-geo-stub Populated places in Aceh Aceh Besar Regency