From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

COLUMBO, CHENNAI, PHUKET–Concern for marine life after the
Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004 centered on sea turtles
and coral reefs.
Sea turtles, just beginning their nesting season, and usually
drowned by the thousands in trawler nets, appeared to be among the
few beneficiaries–other than fish–of the destruction of fishing
fleets and beachfront development.
Thirty olive ridley sea turtles hatched on February 16 at
Tanjung Beach on Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for example, a
tsunami-struck resort area where sea turtles had not nested
successfully in more than a decade.
But U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service coral reef expert
Tom Hourigan told Paul Recer of Associated Press that reefs badly
damaged by the regional El Nino effect of 1997-1998 were likely to
have taken a further pounding.
“It is very likely that the tsunami would damage the coral
and some of the worst damage would come from debris thrown up against
the reefs,” Hourigan told Recer.
“Some entire reef ecosystems could have been buried by
sediments flushed into shallow environments,” added coral reef
division chief Russel E. Brainard of the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration.

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