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CUDDALORE, India - The couple laid the body of their daughter in the pit and watched as a bulldozer poured sand over her and she disappeared from their view forever. They then stepped aside for others to bury their children, denied any chance for a service or private mourning.

In a scene repeated dozens of times across India's battered southeastern coast on Monday, weeping and red-eyed parents in Cuddalore held a mass burial for more than 150 children who died in the killer tidal wave.

Children

The devastating megathrust earthquake of December 26th, 2004 occurred on the interface of the India and Burma plates and was cause by the release of stresses that develop as the India plate subducts beneath the overriding Burma plate. The India plate begins its decent into the mantle at the Sunda trench which lies to the west of the earthquake's epicenter. The trench is the surface expression of the India-Burma plate interface.
The tectonics of the region is complex and involves the interaction of the Australian, Sunda and Eurasian plates in addition to the India and Burma plate. The India and Australia plates move northeastwards at a rate of about 6 cm/year relative to the Burma plate. This results in oblique convergence at the Sunda trench. Some of this oblique motion is accommodated on the right-lateral transform faults and rifts that separate the Burma and Sunda plates.

Preliminary locations of larger aftershocks following the megathrust earthquake show that approximately 1000 km of the plate boundary slipped as a result of the earthquake. Aftershocks are distributed along much of the shallow plate interface and primarily extend northwards of the epicenter to the Andaman Islands.

The worlds largest recorded earthquakes were all megathrust events and occur where one tectonic plate subducts beneath another. These include: the magnitude 9.5 1960 Chile earthquake, the magnitude 9.2 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake, the magnitude 9.1 1957 Andreanof, Alaska earthquake, and the magnitude 9.0 1952 Kamchatka earthquake. As with the recent event, megathrust earthquakes often generate large tsunamis that can cause damage over a much wider area than is directly effected by ground shaking near the earthquake's rupture
earthquake.usgs.gov...

Magnitude 9.0 OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA December 26, 2004
Magnitude 8.1 NORTH OF MACQUARIE ISLAND December 23, 2004
Magnitude 6.8 CAYMAN ISLANDS REGION December 14, 2004
Magnitude 6.8 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION December 06, 2004
Magnitude 7.0 HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION November 28, 2004
Magnitude 7.1 PAPUA, INDONESIA November 26, 2004
Magnitude 7.1 OFF WEST COAST OF THE SOUTH ISLAND, N.Z. November 22, 2004
Magnitude 6.3 LEEWARD ISLANDS November 21, 2004
Magnitude 6.4 COSTA RICA November 20, 2004
Magnitude 7.2 NEAR THE WEST COAST OF COLOMBIA November 15, 2004
Magnitude 7.5 KEPULAUAN ALOR, INDONESIA November 11, 2004
Magnitude 6.7 SOLOMON ISLANDS November 11, 2004
Magnitude 6.9 SOLOMON ISLANDS November 09, 2004
Magnitude 6.3 TAIWAN REGION November 08, 2004
Magnitude 6.7 VANCOUVER ISLAND, CANADA REGION November 02, 2004
earthquake.usgs.gov...

An Australian seismologist said the Indo-Australian tectonic plate had shifted, triggering first the smaller earthquake off the Tasmanian coast last Thursday and then Sunday's catastrophic one.

Geoscience Australia seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said the initial earthquake, 700 km southeast of Hobart, might have been the catalyst for the devastating tremors to hit Indonesia, but it was not a direct cause.

There are 12 plate boundaries on earth that move around. Earthquakes take place when these plates collide.

"This earthquake in Indonesia is on the same plate as the earthquake near Tasmania. It just happened on the other side, where the Australian plate collides with the Philippine plate," Sinadinovski said.

"It is not uncommon that an earthquake on one side of a plate would trigger an earthquake on the other side," The Australian daily quoted him as saying.