Number Sense – Activity: Tsunami Numbers in the News
About a decade ago, there was a great Tsunami happening in Asia.
What do you know about the Asian tsunami?
Read through the article first. Use the following numbers to fill in the blanks in the story.Think about which numbers make sense.
500 20 8,000; 2004 110,000 30,000 9.0
A tsunami triggered by a very large earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on December 26, ____, has left more than 150,000 people dead and millions homeless. Countries hit hardest by the disaster include Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and the Maldives. Almost 75% of the deaths occurred in Indonesia, estimated at ____. Sir Lanka was second highest with about 20% of the estimated deaths, or ______ people lost that day. The rest of the deaths, approximately ____, occurred in the other nine countries affected by the tsunami.
The ____ foot wall of water, higher than a two-story building, swallowed entire villages. The tsunami waves were not only very high, they moved at a much faster speed than normal. These waves were comparable in size to those you see on some of the surfing movies; but those waves travel at 30 miles an hour, and the tsunami waves were moving more than fifteen times as fast at ____ miles an hour. The velocity of the force is what caused the destruction—a massive force that swept away everything in its path.
The earthquake causing this Tsunami was a destructive earthquake measuring ______ on the Richter scale, the fourth worst earthquake in recorded history. Earthquakes are measured on a Richter scale that has a range from 0 to 12; a 6.0 on the scale is a pretty bad earthquake.
(Story constructed from January 2005 news reports)
