Earthmovers

Top stories of 2005 | Disaster upon disaster beyond U.S. shores | Jamie Dean

As experts debated the wisdom of rebuilding large swaths of the low-lying city of New Orleans, aid workers a half a world away toiled under grueling conditions to rebuild far larger swaths of Southeast Asia ravaged by a tsunami nine months earlier. When a 9.0-magnitude earthquake rumbled four miles beneath the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26, 2004, it produced a tidal wave of cataclysmic proportions, sweeping coastlines in 12 nations, killing more than 200,000 people, and displacing millions more.

Undone by the largest natural disaster in recorded history, millions of people clamored for food and clean water, while armies of aid workers struggled to deliver scarce supplies into 2005. Desperate reports emerged about the vulnerable. Among the most chilling: Thousands of newly orphaned children suddenly became the target of thugs trafficking in slave labor and the commercial sex trade.