| Tsunami,Tsunami information Tsunami pictures Recent Tsunami Origin of the word Tsunami is related to harbor waves in Japan. The rest of the world came to know about the destructing, big waves in Japan from paintings of world famous Japanese painter Hokusai in late nineteenth century. These harbor waves are quite common in Pacific ocean. Earthquakes on land locations do not create great sea waves. The rupture of the earth's crust under the seas, due to tectonic plate movements or volcanic eruptions on the ocean bed cause earthquakes and Tsunami waves. The seismic waves under the interior of the earth travel to ocean bed with 800 kms/sec. The Tsunami waves under the sea, originated above the disturbances, travel towards the surface. The waves move in all directions in great speed (faster than 10 Km/minute) till they reach the distant shores in far away countries. On the deep seas, ships can not detect them easily as they pass very quickly within short time and low height (maximum 2 ft). The velocity of the wave is different in different directions depending on the topographic orientation of originating plate movements. a simple wave picture Tsunami As the waves reach near the shores, the speed and wave length decrease. But as the energy is the same, height increases. Water piles up as the wave approaches the shallow shore regions. As Tsumamis hit the beaches, their height increases to even 50 meters. Thus tsunamis waves break on the shores of coastal towns and villages, large water bodies enter land. The great energy destroys roads, buldings and everything on its way. A tsunami is not one single wave, but a series of many waves for several days. The time between two tsunamis varies from 10 to 45 minutes. The sea returns to its normal state after several days. Each of the tsunami is different in nature of destructions caused. There was no single year free of tsunamis. But tsunamis are still unpredictable, no one can predict when, where and how many tsunamis will occur. In last 100 years, 800 tsunamis have occured and affected the coastal regions of many countries in varying degrees. The following break up shows how tsunamis have affected in last 100 years. |
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| Tsunamis are natural events. Like all other natural events, man can not prevent their occurances. But precautions can be taken to prevent large scale damage and unnecessary loss of life and homes. |
| Large scale disasters due to 2004 Dec 26 Tsunami have clearly shown the following facts. 1. Tourists visiting unproected sea beaches during the Tsunami period have lost their lives. Countries having coastal sea resorts, located near the 'ring of fire' have been careless about regulations of hotels and other cheaper tourist resorts. There is no tall structure or protected buildings near the beaches. No warning system, no monitoring of natural events in small towns. Transport systems from and to the tourist spots are inadequate for quick evacuation of people. 2. Residents of costal towns are too poor to build concrete buildings for residence. They live in small and cheap housing, often unauthorised by municipalities. Poor people near the beaches find easy money from tourist traffic, live in small huts with easy access to tourists in the sea beach. It is not possible to evacuate these families within hours at the time of warning for a large scale calamity. They are left to God's will. |
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