Tsunami is a formidable natural phenomenon resulting from volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in coastal areas. This is a giant wave that covers the coast for many kilometers inward. The term "tsunami" is of Japanese origin and literally means "big wave in the bay". It is Japan that most often suffers from elemental strikes, because it is located in the zone of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" - the largest seismic belt on Earth.
Causes of occurrence
Tsunami is formed as a result of the "shaking" of billions of tons of water column. Like circles from a stone thrown into the water, the waves scatter in different directions at a speed of about 800 km per hour to reach the shore and splash out on it in a huge shaft, destroying everything in its path. And often people who find themselves in the tsunami zone have a few minutes to leave the dangerous place. Therefore, it is very important to warn residents about the threat in time, sparing no means for this.
The largest tsunami in the last 10 years
A terrible tragedy occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004. An underwater earthquake with a magnitude of 9.1 caused the appearance of giant waves up to 98 m high. Within a few minutes they reached the coast of Indonesia. In total, 14 countries were in the disaster zone, including Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Bangladesh.
It was the largest tsunami in history in terms of the number of victims, which reached 230 thousand. Densely populated coastal areas were not equipped with a danger warning system, which was the reason for so manydeaths. But there could have been much more victims if the oral traditions of the individual peoples of these countries had not preserved information about the tsunami in antiquity. And some families said that they managed to escape the dangerous place thanks to the children who learned about the giant waves in the classroom. And the retreat of the sea, before returning in the form of a deadly tsunami, served as a signal for them to run higher up the slope. This confirmed the need to educate people on how to behave in an emergency.
The largest tsunami in Japan
In the spring of 2011, trouble struck the Japanese islands. On March 11, an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 occurred off the coast of the country, which led to the emergence of waves up to 33 m high. Some reports noted other figures - water crests reached 40-50 m.
Despite the fact that almost all coastal cities in Japan have dams to protect against tsunamis, this did not help in the earthquake zone. The number of dead, as well as those carried into the ocean and missing, totalsmore than 25 thousand people. People across the country anxiously read the lists of victims of the earthquake and tsunami, afraid to find their relatives and friends in them.
125,000 buildings were destroyed and transport infrastructure damaged. But the most dangerous consequence was the accident at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant. It almost led to a nuclear catastrophe on a global scale, especially since radioactive contamination affected the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The forces of not only Japanese power engineers, rescuers and self-defense forces were sent to eliminate the accident. The leading nuclear powers of the world also sent their specialists to help save them from an ecological catastrophe. And although now the situation at the nuclear power plant has stabilized, scientists still cannot fully assess its consequences.
Tsunami warning services have alerted the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines and other areas at risk. But, fortunately, already greatly weakened waves no more than three meters high reached their shores.
So, the largest tsunamis in the last 10 years happened in the Indian Ocean and Japan.
Major disasters of the decade
Indonesia and Japan are among the countries where destructive waves happen quite often. For example, in July 2006, a tsunami again formed in Java as a result of a devastating underwater shock. Waves, reaching 7-8 m in places, swept along the coast, capturing even those areas that miraculously did not suffer during the deadly tsunami of 2004. Resort residents and guestsdistricts again experienced the horror of helplessness before the forces of nature. In total, 668 people died or went missing during the rampage of the elements, and more than 9 thousand sought medical help.
In 2009, a major tsunami hit the Samoa archipelago, where nearly 15-meter waves swept through the islands, destroying everything in their path. The number of victims was 189 people, mostly children, who were on the coast. But the operational work of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center avoided even greater loss of life, allowing people to be evacuated to safe places.
The largest tsunami in the last 10 years occurred in the Pacific and Indian Oceans off the coast of Eurasia. But this does not mean that similar disasters cannot happen in other parts of the globe.
Destructive tsunamis in human history
Human memory has preserved information about the giant waves observed in antiquity. The oldest is the mention of a tsunami that happened in connection with a volcanic eruption on the island of Greater Santorini. This event dates back to 1410 BC.
It was the largest tsunami in the world of antiquity. The explosion lifted most of the island into the sky, leaving in its place a depression instantly filled with sea water. From a collision with hot magma, the water boiled abruptly and evaporated, intensifying the earthquake. The waters of the Mediterranean Sea heaved up, forming giant waves that hit the entire coast. The ruthless element took 100 thousand lives, which is a very large number evenfor modernity, not like for ancient times. According to many scientists, it was this eruption and the resulting tsunami that led to the disappearance of the Crete-Minoan culture - one of the most mysterious ancient civilizations on Earth.
In 1755, the city of Lisbon was almost completely wiped off the face of the earth by a terrible earthquake, the fires that arose as a result of it, and a terrible wave that washed over the city afterwards. 60,000 people died and many were injured. The sailors from the ships that came to the port of Lisbon after the disaster did not recognize the surrounding area. This trouble was one of the reasons for the loss of the title of great maritime power by Portugal.
30 thousand people were victims of the 1707 tsunami in Japan. In 1782, a disaster in the South China Sea claimed the lives of 40,000 people. The eruption of the Krakatoa volcano (1883) also caused a tsunami, which caused the death of 36.5 thousand people. In 1868, the number of victims of huge waves in Chile amounted to more than 25 thousand. 1896 was marked by a new tsunami in Japan that claimed more than 26,000 lives.
Alaska tsunami
An incredible wave formed in 1958 in Lituya Bay in Alaska. It was also caused by an earthquake. But there were other circumstances as well. As a result of the earthquake, a giant landslide, amounting to about 300 million cubic meters, descended from the slopes of the mountains on the coast of the bay. m of rocks and ice. All this collapsed into the waters of the bay, causing the formation of a colossal wave that reached a height of 524 m! Scientist Millerbelieves that even before that, the largest tsunami in the world occurred there.
A blow of such force hit the opposite shore that all vegetation and a mass of loose rocks were completely demolished on the slopes, and a rocky base was exposed. Three ships that ended up in the bay at an unfortunate moment had different fates. One of them sank, the second crashed, but the team managed to escape. And the third ship, being on the crest of a wave, was carried over the spit separating the bay and thrown into the ocean. Only by a miracle the sailors did not die. Then they recalled how during the forced "flight" they saw the tops of trees growing on the spit below under the ship.
Fortunately, the shores of Lituya Bay are almost deserted, so such an unprecedented wave did not cause any significant harm. The largest tsunami did not cause great loss of life. Only 2 people are believed to have died.
Tsunami in the Russian Far East
In our country, the Pacific coast of Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands belong to the tsunami-prone zone. They also lie in a seismically unstable region, where devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions often occur.
The largest tsunami in Russia was recorded in 1952. Waves reaching a height of 8-10 meters hit the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka. The population was not prepared for such a turn of events after the earthquake. Those who, after the cessation of tremors, returned to the surviving houses, for the most part never got out of them. The city of Severo-Kurilsk was almost completely destroyed. Number of victimsestimated at 2,336, but there may be many more. The tragedy that happened a few days before the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution was hushed up for years, only rumors circulated about it. The city has been moved to a higher and safer location.
The Kuril tragedy became the basis for the organization of a tsunami warning service in the USSR.
Lessons from the past
The largest tsunamis over the past 10 years have shown the fragility of life and everything created by man in front of the raging elements. But they also made it possible to understand the need to coordinate the efforts of many countries to prevent the most terrible consequences. And in most areas affected by the tsunami, work was launched to warn the population about the danger and the need to evacuate.
