On the morning of Sunday,26 December 2004,there was a severe earthquake in the Indian Ocean off the coast of northern Sumatra,Indonesia.The earthquake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale and was followed by aftershocks ranging from 6.3 to 7.0 in severity in a zone 1,000 kilometres north to the Andaman Islands.The underwater earthquake also resulted in a powerful tsunami ('soo-na-mi',from the Japanese words meaning 'harbour wave').The wave travelled quickly under the ocean,building to a wall of water up to 10 metres high when it reached the shallow coastal waters and causing massive destruction when it hit land.Without an effective warning system and disaster plan,many people did not know to move quickly to higher ground to escape the wave and its load of debris.In some places the sea receded for hundreds of metres before the wave rushed in.Curious people looking at this strange occurrence from the beaches did not recognise this as a sign of danger,and as a result were killed by the tsunami.
China's transport and energy systems have been caught in a perfect winter storm,with hundreds of thousands of people stranded during the peak travel season after train delays caused by heavy snow and power failures.
The power crisis,the worst in China for many years,has been caused by an acute shortage of the supply of coal,the country's staple fuel.Brownouts have affected about half of China's 31 provinces and regions
The problem has been amplified by unseasonally large snowfalls in northern and central China,but the root cause is Beijing's attempt to reimpose and tighten price controls on numerous commodities,such as coal and oil.