Why did so many people die in the tsunami?

Answer 1

The reason is simply because the captain thought his ship was unsinkable so he only put enough lifeboats on the ship for about half of the passengers and that doesn't include the crew and then when the boat was sinking they only filled the lifeboats up about halfway but then again the entire thing could of been avoided if they would have blistened to the iceberg warning and not sped up the ship in the first place.

Answer 2

this was for my geography essay...

Haiti is found on a conservative plate boundary, where there haven't been any large earthquakes for 200 years. This then allows the pressure between the plates to build up, and when suddenly released, the earthquake was created. The less earthquake activity in the last few hundred years means the higher the pressure built up and the bigger the earthquake. Also, the epicentre of the earthquake was only 6 km from the surface of the earth, so the seismic waves were still strong by the time they reached the surface.

The fact that it was only 15 km from the capital city also played a part- it is a densely populated area, with poorly constructed and unstable buildings with most people living in slums after rapid urbanisation and this reduced the chance of survival. There is less money put into the construction of the buildings and less governance ensuring building codes are followed. When so many structures come down, it meant that more people were likely to be trapped beneath the rubble. Because there was more destruction, this meant that it was more difficult to respond once the earthquake hit. This meant that for every 16,588 affected, only 1 was rescued.

Haiti did not have the resources to act quickly and it took time to get help from the outside in because Haiti has only one airport with one runway and the control tower was badly damaged, as well as the port being unstable. So aid had been piling up at the airport due to lack of trucks to distribute this aid and water and food took days to arrive and there wasn't enough to go around.

Many of Haiti's population have not been in education and had unofficial jobs in the cities, meaning that there was a low supply of doctors to help people once freed and many people died from broken limbs as no one was able to treat them. Rescue teams from around the world arrived to help, but with a delay of up to 48 hours because of the airport, meaning local people had to try to rescue people with their bare hands.

Answer 3

It was so devastating because it destroyed many villages and killed around 200,000 people during and after. It spread across loads of different countries and was most powerful in Thai land,The South Eastern Coast, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Answer 4

Between 10,000 to 25,000 according to various sources. Reuters. Huffingpost. Guardian news paper.

Answer 5

Because of fires breaking out and the high wave that swept the land.

Answer 6

because the wave was so powerful