If anyone has anymore questions about what happened near Indonesia, I shall do my best to answer them. I'm not sure I can say much more about what happened from a purely scientific perspective. I'm actually avoiding the human element of this story and discussing the science because you can find the human element all over the place and on the blogsphere, but the science is difficult if not impossible to find. Not only that, I think the science brings some answers to the question of how could this kill so many people. When you recognize the scale of the earthquake and the magnitude of the movement, it is easier to understand how so many people died in this disaster.

One final note: the tsunami appeared to have formed after the ocean floor moved 30 feet (~10m) vertically because of the earthquake. There is also the possibility submarine landslides could have triggered the tsunami as well. It will take a bathymetric scan in order to figure out what exactly happened.

Edited to correct error