yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Tsunamis 101 | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

A tragic scene: entire cities flooded, entire towns inundated, an unending stream of floating debris—buildings, cars, people swept away in an unstoppable wave. It's a brutal reminder tsunamis are dangerous and unpredictable.

But what causes these giant waves, and what can be done to minimize their impact? Tsunamis can strike with little warning because they're usually triggered by a sudden displacement of ocean water, like volcanic eruptions, landslides, meteorites, or the most common culprit: earthquakes.

In the deep ocean, a typical tsunami wave is barely noticeable and poses little threat. However, the waves can spread out thousands of miles, rolling across the ocean at speeds up to 600 mph. As the rolling water reaches the shoreline, the wave's friction against the shallower floor slows it down and raises its height.

By the time it reaches the shore, the wave can be as tall as 100 ft. Unlike ordinary waves, a tsunami wave doesn't crest and break; instead, it moves forward like a solid wall of water that crashes over the coastline, obliterating almost everything in its path. And just when you think the danger is over, it recedes, dragging everything back to the ocean.

Tsunamis have multiple waves, which can continue to hit the shore for several hours, causing even more destruction. The word "tsunami" originates from Japan, a country that sits on a geographic location that makes it an easy target for these natural disasters. In 2011, it was struck by a tsunami that claimed nearly 16,000 lives.

But the deadliest tsunami in history is believed to be the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that tsunami released the energy equivalent of 20,000 to 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. An earthquake created an estimated 600-mile rupture on the ocean floor; this caused the tsunami to form and then travel at the speed of a jetliner, reaching over 11 countries and traveling over 3,000 miles, killing more than 220,000 people.

Because they can strike so quickly with such deadly force, tsunami warning centers around the globe are on constant alert, monitoring underwater earthquakes large enough to trigger massive waves. Their ultimate goal is to alert vulnerable coastlines and give residents time to seek higher ground before a tsunami hits.

More Articles

View All
Free Markets Are Intrinsic to Humans
Overall, capitalism is intrinsic to the human species. Capitalism is not something we invented; capitalism is not even something we discovered. It is innate to us. In every exchange that we have, when you and I exchange information, I want some informatio…
Current | Introduction to electrical engineering | Electrical engineering | Khan Academy
All right, now we’re going to talk about the idea of an electric current. The story about current starts with the idea of charge. So, we’ve learned that we have two kinds of charges: positive and negative charge. We’ll just make up two little charges like…
Surviving a Firefight | No Man Left Behind
One thing you have to understand about an SCES soldier, you know, during them six months of selection, what we do is knock them soldiers down physically, mentally, everything. And they get back up and they keep moving on, and you just keep getting over ea…
_-substitution: defining _ | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
What we’re going to do in this video is give ourselves some practice in the first step of u substitution, which is often the most difficult for those who are first learning it. That’s recognizing when u substitution is appropriate and then defining an app…
The Priceless Benefits of Not Belonging
The experience of not belonging can manifest itself in different ways. You may not have belonged to the popular groups at school, perhaps you don’t belong to a certain religious community, maybe you’re the town’s fool, or your family doesn’t want to see y…
This Community in the Philippines Converts Plastic Fishing Nets to Carpet | National Geographic
When we first came here, the fish were so depleted because the fishing methods have become more destructive. You could go along a coral reef for ten minutes and hardly see a fish. As a marine biologist, I quickly realized that I really wanted to do someth…