Report: 2004 tsunami damage to coral “surprisingly limited”
Several teams of scientists went from Thailand to Indonesia to the Maldives to study the impact of the 2004 tsunami on the coral. Their reports have been released through the National Museum of Natural History’s Atoll Research Bulletin issue 544 in an edited collection called Tsunamis and Coral Reefs.
The report, called “Disturbance to Coral Reefs in Aceh, Northern Sumatra: Impacts of the Sumatra-Andaman Tsunami and Pre-Tsunami Degradation” (July 2007) by Campbell et al, found that:
the initial damage to corals, while occasionally spectacular, was surprisingly limited and trivial when compared to pre-existing damage most probably caused by destructive fishing practices.
An assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) called “A Technical Assessment for Determining the Level of Fishing Capacity, Impact of Tsunami on Fishery Resources and Identification of Resources Access and Other Fishery-Related Issues in the Impacted Area” (June 2006) had come to a similar conclusion.
The overall extent of damages to the coral reefs based on the rapid
assessment was much less than anticipated (approximately less than 20 % were seriously damaged).