Waves more than 15 meters (49 feet) high. Flooding of 25 square miles of land.
A coastline moved a mile.
Banda Aceh and the nearby area of Lohknga, on the northwestern tip of the Indonesian
island of Sumatra were among the places hardest hit by the tsunami generated by
the magnitude 9.3 Indian Ocean undersea earthquake.
Borrero, a research assistant professor in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's
department of civil and environmental engineering, was one of the first investigators
to visit the scene after the waves hit, as part of an international tsunami survey
team.
A reseacher at the USC Tsunami Research Center, he made on the spot measurements,
using eyewitness accounts and physical evidence, including such observations as
the height bark could be seen stripped from trees. He later combined these measurements
with data from satellite images.
His one-page Science paper presents only highlights from the investigation report, which will be
published in full later.
The highlights include: