Cause And Effect Of Tsunami

1. Tsunami in General

What is tsunami?

Tsunami (Japanese kanji: 津波) is a word originated from Japanese meaning wave (“nami”) in a harbor (“tsu”), referring to how tsunami waves are strongest in bays as the energy piles up and produce greater tsunami inland than in the peninsulas, resulting significant damages in ports/harbors. Tsunami waves (or known as tsunami bore) travel faster through estuaries into the river; the river becomes an express highway for them. It comes as series of travelling waves of long length and period, generated by disturbance associated with earthquake occurring below or near the ocean floor (IOC, 2013). A tsunami is not just one big wave, but a series of waves called a “wave train.” The time period between waves is

These effects result in many arrivals of the tsunami at a particular point on the coast rather than a single wave suggested. Because of the complicated behavior of tsunami waves near the coast, the first wave is usually not the strongest, and later waves, such as the fifth or sixth, may be significantly larger, emphasizing the importance of not returning to a beach several hours after a tsunami hits (Nelson, 2012 and Kuskuy, 2008). People often die after the first tsunami wave because they return to their homes too soon or go to the beach to help stranded people or animals, only to be engulfed by another tsunami wave (Fine,

It was a powerful tsunami with waves as high as a 12 story building (Recabarren et.al.). While only a few tsunamis are caused by submarine landslides. These landslides might also be triggered by earthquake, as what happened during the greatest disaster: the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and Tsunami. Another tsunami caused by a combination of earthquake and underwater landslide occurred at Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958, creating the tallest tsunami ever recorded at 1,720 feet (516 m) high; such tall wave could happen from a much higher initial wave height in the deep ocean. Miraculously, only two people died (Kuskuy, 2008 and Pararas-Caryannis, 1999). Another cause of tsunami is fall of meteorite; it is still debatable that a tsunami caused by meteorite fall was most likely to be the cause dinosaurs’ extinction 3.3 billion years ago (Cain, 2013). Tsunami can also happen from man-made underwater explosions. During the World War II, nuclear testing by the United States in the Marshall Islands in the 1940s and 1950s generated tsunami (Nelson,