Tsunami | Facts, Causes, and Effects
The word Tsunami comes from Japanese origin, which means harbour wave (tsu= harbour and nami= waves). Back in the time, other words used for a tsunami are Tidal waves or Seismic wave. These both words are technically not appropriate and wasn't accepted by the scientific community due to the reason behind its cause. That's why the word, Tsunami is adopted. Tsunami waves cannot be reassembled with the normal ocean waves due to their wavelength because a normal ocean wave is generated by winds and tidal effects. The attraction of the moon and the sun. While, Tsunami waves are generated due to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, meteoritic impact, underwater explosions, land sliding or glacier sliding.
When any of the phenomena happens, the disturbance is created in the sea. Which causes a huge displacement in the water body, resulting in the generation of continuous series of waves. A tsunami can last about an hour or less, depending on the impact of any of the above phenomena. The height of its wave can be reached to several thousand feet. As recorded in history, the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami is one of the deadliest disasters in the history of humans. The effects of a tsunami are greater in the coastal areas, as the initial successive waves generated are more impactful and have greater heights with enormous force.
Causes
The Tsunami is generated due to a disturbance in the water body because of an earthquake, volcanic eruptions, and land sliding. In this blog, we are going to discuss all these effects.
1. Seismic Activity
The water body transfer the energy in the series of waves also called "wave train". The flux of energy will cause an effect of a wave train and hence generates a tsunami. The sliding of tectonic plates inside the ocean will cause overlying water to displace and causes disturbance in the sea level and its volume. We still cannot term tsunami waves as seismic waves as tsunamic waves are not generated by seismic activity only, there are several other causes involved also.
2. Volcanic eruptions
Volcanic eruptions also cause huge displacement in the ocean, which result in the generation of high tsunami waves. These waves can be extremely destructive to an immediate source area. Back in time, one of the destructive tsunamis ever recorded was in August 1883, in Indonesia. The explosion and collapse of the volcano Krakatau caused a huge displacement in the volume and generated waves that reached 135 feet, killing 36,417 people in coastal town and villages.
Volcanoes are one of the sources which can create a tsunami as destructive as from an earthquake. If we consider the recent times, then 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington (USA) caused a partial collapse of a volcanic edge and an avalanche into a spirit lake generated a tsunami of 780 foot, which was big enough to collapse the statue of liberty and perhaps even overtop the Blackpool tower. The tsunami waves travelled in another direction and not in the direction of the shoreline, but still got managed to shock and take lives of 400 people near the coastal area. The consequences would be far more destructive if, the waves travelled in the direction of near shorelines.
The same phenomena happen in the case of glacier sliding or underwater explosion.
Volcanic eruptions also cause huge displacement in the ocean, which result in the generation of high tsunami waves. These waves can be extremely destructive to an immediate source area. Back in time, one of the destructive tsunamis ever recorded was in August 1883, in Indonesia. The explosion and collapse of the volcano Krakatau caused a huge displacement in the volume and generated waves that reached 135 feet, killing 36,417 people in coastal town and villages.
Volcanoes are one of the sources which can create a tsunami as destructive as from an earthquake. If we consider the recent times, then 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington (USA) caused a partial collapse of a volcanic edge and an avalanche into a spirit lake generated a tsunami of 780 foot, which was big enough to collapse the statue of liberty and perhaps even overtop the Blackpool tower. The tsunami waves travelled in another direction and not in the direction of the shoreline, but still got managed to shock and take lives of 400 people near the coastal area. The consequences would be far more destructive if, the waves travelled in the direction of near shorelines.
The same phenomena happen in the case of glacier sliding or underwater explosion.
Some facts about the tsunami
- The first wave of a tsunami is usually not the strongest, it gets stronger and bigger after successive waves.
- A tsunami can travel at a speed of 500 miles per hour.
- Almost 80% of tsunamis generate in the pacific ocean.
- If you ever get caught by a tsunami then don't try to swim instead, grab a floating object and let the flowing current carry you.
- A tsunami can reserve their energy, they can travel the entire ocean with minimum energy loss.
- In 2004, the tsunami in the Indian Ocean caused by an earthquake with an energy equivalent to 23,000 atomic bombs. After this earthquake, the destructive waves travelled in the direction of the coastline of 11 countries and killing almost 283,000 people.
Peace!
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