Article

1. Tsunami Facts
The word Tsunami or ‘harbour-wave’ comes from the
Japanese word ‘tsu’, which means harbour and ‘nami’ which
means wave. They are commonly known as ‘killer waves’.
Sounds a bit scary doesn’t it? Well you definitely wouldn’t
want to be around when a tsunami happens.
A Tsunami is usually a huge amount of ocean waves which
get stronger as they move along. It’s caused by pressure in
the atmosphere, a volcanic explosion, an underwater
earthquake or landslide or even a meteor hitting the ocean.

2. Volcanic explosions happen when the plates of the Earth’s
crust move and crash together, which causes a build-up of
pressure from the magma, which is molten rocks and gas,
squeezing up between them and then rising to the surface.
It eventually explodes.
Earthquakes happen when there is a huge amount of stress
released from huge rocks on the Earth’s crust cracking and
slipping past each other. This causes the earth to shake.
Where have Tsunamis been recorded?
They seem to have been around for some time and go back
as far as 6225-6170 BC in the North Atlantic Ocean. There
was another one in Greece in 1600 BC which caused a lot of
damage to the civilization on Crete at the time.
They have happened all over the world including Greece,
Italy, Israel, Venezuela, Great Britain, Canada, Portugal,
Taiwan, Indonesia, Chile, Newfoundland, USSR, Alaska, New
Zealand and by far the most occurrences have been in
Japan, that’s why the name comes from the Japanese
language. Wow, that’s a lot of places that have had
tsunamis.

3. How are Tsunami waves different from other waves?
Tsunamis are not like normal tidal waves and the water from
them flows straight and with unbelievable power. Typical
waves are where the water flows in circles. This might amaze
you…they can travel at speeds of up to 500 miles (805
kilometres) per hour without losing energy as they go along.
The Tsunami that hit Hawaii in 1946 was going almost as
fast as a jet plane. That’s seriously fast. Because of this, their
arrival can often be calculated. How big do you think a
normal wave gets at a beach? Well it is normally about 3
foot (1 meter) high. Now a tsunami wave can reach a height
of 100 feet (30.48 meters) high, that’s amazing. But the
highest recorded one was the 1958 Lituya Bay, Alaska

4. Megatsunami with a recorded height of 1,719 feet
(524 meters). Whoa, that’s one seriously tall wave.
What has been the most devastating Tsunami ever?
The Asian Tsunami in 2004 in the Indian Ocean is considered
the deadliest Tsunami ever, which was caused by an
earthquake with the energy of 23,000 atomic bombs! This
brought with it incredibly destructive waves hitting the
coastlines of eleven countries from Thailand to Africa, killing
283,000 people and wiping out cities.
The power of the water picks up aeroplanes, ships, houses
and anything in its path and tosses them around like
corks. Even after a Tsunami has finished, the mainland is
often destroyed by a lot of salt deposits on the land so
people die from hunger and disease.

5. What are the signs of Tsunamis?
Signs of a Tsunami are earth quakes, rumbling in the
ground, when the sea pulls back leaving bare sand or when
animals behave strangely or start leaving. That’s the time to
move away from the beach and run to higher ground, not
stopping to get possessions.
How do people survive Tsunamis?
People survive by not trying to swim, as the current pulls
you in the opposite direction. They rather try and find a
floating object and hold on going where it goes with the
moving current, this could be a tree trunk or piece of a
building. Palm trees planted on the shore have saved people
as they can survive the force of impact of the waves but
often trees snap under the force of the water so climbing a
tree isn’t always the best idea.

6. Indigenous people like the semi-nomadic Onge and the
Jarawa of the South and Middle Andaman Islands generally
survive Tsunamis far better than westernised populations as
the wisdom of survival has been passed down through their
generations.
Some other interesting Facts about Tsunamis
 The waves of a tsunami are called a ‘wave train’
 The states in the U.S. at greatest risk for tsunamis are
Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California
 Did you know that sometimes Tsunami waves are so
small that they can hardly be noticed? Who would have
thought that?
 Modern technology can let us know when a tsunami is
likely to happen. Seismographs are offshore computers
that look for changes in wave heights; it can then send
signals and trigger sirens to alert people on land. That’s
cool; at least people will be warned!

7.  While no one has witnessed a tsunami caused by a
meteorite, loads of scientists think that a meteorite may
have created a tsunami that wiped out life on Earth
more than 3.5 billion years ago. Wow, that’s interesting.
Tsunamis can be really dangerous, but it’s an interesting
geography lesson too! Do you know any other facts about
Tsunamis?