The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake occurred off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The quake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coast of most of the landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters.
This simulation shows the tsunami hitting Patong Beach, one of the worst affected areas of Phuket, Thailand.
The underlying model used to generate the scenario is the ANUGA hydrodynamic model which is a free and open source software tool, suitable for predicting the consequences of hydrological disasters such as riverine flooding, storm surges and tsunamis.
More information about the software is available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANUGA_Hydro
Scientific visualisation by NCI VizLab's Drew Whitehouse.