The tsunami generated by the Sumatra earthquake on December 26, 2004 affected many countries around the Indian Ocean and Thailand also suffered severely from this event, i.e. 6 provinces along the Andaman coastline. More than 8,000 people perished or went missing, 4,500 houses were totally destroyed, and economic losses were estimated at more than 14 billion baht. Since it bore the brunt of the tidal wave at its peak, Phang Nga experienced the largest number of fatalities or missing (more than 65%) as well as property damage (about 50%). The Government was prominent in several short- and long-term measures following the disaster management cycle, including the development of a tsunami resilient community. This paper discusses several measures implemented by the government, private sectors, and international organizations.

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In the last two years, the tsunami phenomenon has become a very serious issue in Indonesia. The 2004 Sumatra tsunami caused 130,000 casualties with another 37,000 missing, presumed dead, and financial loss suffered reached $ 4.3 billion. A tsunami struck the Pangandaran area again, West Java Province, on July 17, 2006, which caused 668 casualties with another 45 missing and financial loss reaching $ 44.7 million. The damage to these infrastructures and lives clearly shows that disaster mitigation and disaster countermeasure efforts are still not running well. This is becoming the background to the urgent need for integrated tsunami disaster mitigation to build a well-prepared coastal disaster community in the near future.

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The Indian ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004 was the biggest natural disaster in the history of Sri Lanka. Unlike many other countries affected by this tsunami, the damage in Sri Lanka was so widespread that about two thirds of the coastline from the northern Jaffna peninsula, along the eastern coast down to the southern tip of Dondra Head, as well as the relatively sheltered southwestern and western coasts, were subjected to inundation. More than 35,000 people died, 100,000 houses were damaged and 500,000 people were displaced, while the severe damage caused to infrastructure and environment exceeded US $ 900 million. It has been estimated that 3 to 5 years will be needed to complete the rehabilitation and reconstruction task at a cost of nearly US $ 2.2 billion. The recovery program has made some significant progress in certain areas and actions have also been initiated to improve the disaster mitigation capability in the country. This paper reviews the issues, problems associated with and progress of the recovery process as well as the work carried out to mitigate potential future disasters in Sri Lanka.

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The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami caused more than 220,000 casualties and over $10 billion worth of damage, with the extent of the latter attributed to a lack of knowledge about tsunamis, given their rarity in this area. Questionnaire surveys on tsunami awareness were carried out among 1,000 residents in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, respectively, since the coastlines of these countries were some of the most severely damaged regions of the Indian Ocean. The purpose was to assess and evaluate the capacity of communities to respond to natural disasters. Additionally, a comparative analysis was carried out to identify the regional differences in tsunami risk perceptions, based on which people adjust their behavior and judgment. Careful consideration was given to differences in sociocultural backgrounds throughout the study, especially when quantitatively analyzing results and interpreting the implications and overall trends revealed several differences among the three countries on the topics studied.

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