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1. Introduction
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami (IOT) was one of the deadliest coastal disasters in recent history, resulting in over 230,000 deaths across more than 15 countries ranging across Asia to Africa (Suppasri et al., 2015). The earthquake which generated the tsunami had a magnitude of Mw 9.3, making it the first “extreme” earthquake since the 1964 earthquake (Stein and Okal, 2007, 2005). Sri Lanka was among the countries that were majorly affected, as the tsunami hit at least four-fifths of the country’s coastal belt. It caused 29,729 human deaths, displaced 889,175 number of people and over 79,100 houses were destructed (Department of Census and Statistics, 2017; Disaster Management Center, 2018).
Prior to the 2004 IOT, the disasters induced by natural hazards which largely affected the country were floods and landslides, with floods being the major disaster affecting Sri Lankan citizens. As Sri Lanka had not experienced tsunamis in the recent past prior to 2004, the country was woefully unprepared to face such a disaster (Jayasuriya et al., 2006). This was one of the reasons for the high number of losses, as Sri Lanka did not possess any standard tsunami early warning (EW) mechanisms at the time (Siriwardana et al., 2017).
The studies conducted by Burbidge et al. (2008), Latief et al. (2008) and Jankaew et al. (2008) have shown that the return period of a tsunami with a magnitude similar to that of the 2004 IOT will be between 520 to 1,000 years. Yet after the 2004 IOT, several other earthquake-generated tsunamis have occurred in the Indian Ocean, in the years of 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2012. Each of the earthquakes had magnitudes equal to or greater than Mw 8.0 (Suppasri et al., 2015). Since 2004, Sri Lanka was not affected by these tsunamis; hence, the preparation and risk reduction focus on Tsunami risk has decreased compared to the other countries in the region (Rathnayake et al., 2019). However, the knowledge and the awareness of the citizens regarding tsunamis and preparation to face them must be continuously maintained.
The main aim of this research study was to identify barriers and challenges in the disaster management mechanism and to evaluate the context of the affected communities at 15 years...