the '04 catastrophe was a thrust fault, which means the movement is vertical; and because the thrust was soooooooo large, the water was displaced significantly. This, as you said, Quiche, was a slip fault, where the movement is horizontal, or sideways, and doesn't displace the water as much.
What I find interesting is that the movement is felt far more widely in slip quakes, and not necessarily as devastatingly, as compared to a thrust quake. Slip quakes "ripple" and thrust quakes "bounce." But the ripple can be felt farther than the bounce, and that's the interesting thing to me. LOL.
And yes, I don't recall any time in my life (and I've been following quakes for decades), or any that I've read about, where the amount of such large quakes have been compressed into such a short time frame.
Obviously, the ring of fire is moving, and moving quite radically. Studies have shown that over geological time (meaning eons, LOL), the "bottom" of the earth is moving towards the "top" of the earth. Some very cool computer graphics show how everything was once one really big piece of land, and now, eons later, we have all the different continents, oceans, and archipelagos. It seems as if the "bottom" (e.g. Indonesia, Australia/New Zealand, and the Vanuatu Islands) is splitting further apart, and putting more pressure on the mid Pacific areas (e.g. Japan, Chile, South America) and will eventually put pressure on the "top" areas (e.g. China, Russia, North America).
I don't like the frequency uptick, and I most certainly don't like the magnitude growth.
I wonder what's actually going on...all the doom/gloomers are saying it's all about 2012, or (the newer one) 2017, or pole shifts (some merit to that theory), or solar maximum, or planet X and it's gravitational pull...who knows. I don't think anyone knows for sure. I just know it's interesting, and a good reminder to make sure that I have my emergency supplies set and ready, for all the critters and for me.
Best-
Herding Cats