Twenty years ago, on December 26, 2004, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history unfolded. A series of tsunamis, with waves of up to 100 ft high, spread across the Indian Ocean, and killed over 227,000 people in a matter of hours.
That morning, I was in Sri Lanka, a beautiful island nation off the southeast of India. After touring the country for several days, I was in a beachfront hotel, just south of the capital. Not one for the sun, I started my morning by watching cricket on TV. As I flicked through the channels, a breaking news ticker caught my eye. A major earthquake was being reported off the coast of Indonesia.
An on-screen image showed the earthquake’s location on a map, along with several other countries, including Sri Lanka. Knowing very little about earthquakes, aside from their ability to cause aftershocks and tsunamis, I went to find my family.
Believing they were on the beach, I headed there quickly. When I reached the sand, something wasn’t right. The sea had receded back, exposing the ocean floor, and there was a stillness in the air. No one knew what was happening.
Groups were standing around, dumbfounded by what they were seeing. After sharing what I had heard, we left the beach and went to an area overlooking the sea. A short time later, a wall of water came crashing towards the hotel. A tsunami had arrived and it was destroying everything in its path.
For the next hour or so, we watched helplessly as wave after wave rolled in. Communities were being destroyed around us, and there was nothing anyone could do.
Two days later, we were transported back to the UK by the British government. Only then did we start to understand the true horror of the event. Tsunami waves, traveling as fast as 500 mph, had destroyed villages, towns and livelihoods across South and Southeast Asia, and caused fatalities in 14 countries.
Real-time information flows in 2004
Back in 2004, information flows were very different. There was little social media, few internet connected phones, and no advanced tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean. So despite hours passing between the waves’ arrival in different countries, locals and tourists remained unaware of what was coming.
Media coverage of the tsunami, which impacted multiple countries at the same time, was also challenging. Newsrooms scrambled to gather footage and piece together the scale of the disaster, which took days due to the remoteness of some affected areas. Tourists had recorded what they had seen on small, portable camcorders. But recording this video to tape, and then transmitting to newsrooms, proved difficult.
Catastrophic damage to infrastructure, and existent tech austerity, hindered the efforts of correspondents on the ground. Newsrooms received initial eye witness reports via landline telephones over many hours, but these couldn’t provide much clarity on the size or scale of the impact.
The changing role of technology
In the decades since, the world has become far more interconnected. Today, a complex network of tidal sensors, vastly improved warnings, live cameras, and millions of people with the ability to stream from their phones has completely transformed the information landscape.
Social media, mobile technology, and AI platforms like Dataminr have revolutionized how we detect and respond to crises. Today, real-time alerts enable faster decision making, saving lives and minimizing damage.
Had Dataminr’s technology existed in 2004, the story of the Boxing Day tsunami would have likely been different.
Consider the recent floods in mainland Europe. Publicly available information about the floods were dispersed across text, images, video, sound, and sensor data, across thousands of sources. Dataminr’s AI models were detecting and then describing the events in real time, discovering new information across multiple data formats.
At the same time, our ReGenAI technology distilled these multidimensional events into live event briefs that dynamically updated themselves in real time as the floods and their secondary impacts occurred.
Had Dataminr’s technology existed in 2004, the story of the Boxing Day tsunami would have likely been different. Social media posts and real-time alerts would have provided earlier warnings, giving people the critical time to evacuate and find higher ground. And governments and aid organizations would have had access to actionable, hyperlocal information that helped identify communities in the hardest-hit locations.
Harnessing AI for better outcomes
Looking ahead, advancements in AI promise to reshape how we prepare for and respond to disasters. At a recent AI Summit, Dataminr’s founder and CEO, Ted Bailey, spoke about the transformative potential of AI. With the development of ReGenAI, Dataminr is exploring the ability to not only detect events as they happen but also predict potential outcomes and provide actionable options for decision makers.
We are currently developing AI models that can forecast the trajectory of a natural disaster like a tsunami, anticipate the areas of highest impact, and recommend the most effective evacuation strategies. These capabilities are very much on the near horizon and could give communities the tools they need to prepare and adapt in ways previously unimaginable.
Twenty years after the Boxing Day tsunami, we’re standing at the crossroads of human resilience and technological innovation. While we can’t change the past, we can honor it by building a safer, more connected future. Through real-time intelligence and cutting-edge AI, we’re making strides toward a world where disasters are met with preparedness and informed action.
As I reflect on that day in 2004, I’m reminded of how far we’ve come and how much more we can achieve. The lessons of the past fuel our mission to create a future where technology empowers humanity to respond better and faster to the unexpected. And that’s a vision worth striving for.
