Tsunamis

Tsunamis By Daniel Donahe r

Regular sized waves ^ Tsunami Waves v One of the most destructive forces on earth is called a tsunami. It takes many lives, one year one hundred people died for each tsunami that there was. It's incredible power can tear down buildings right into rubble in less than a minute, and if you're lucky, that's all that it did. They are so powerful, they have serious history on earth, and the process is so incredible, like nothing else on earth.

Tsunamis go by many names such as tidal wave, but they are not caused by the tide, scientists named them tsunamis after the japanese symbols that mean harbor wave. This 'harbor wave' strikes fear into the hearts of just about anyone who lives along the coast, because it has a reputation for deadliness. When the Indonesian volcano, Krakatoa, erupted about 36,000 people died. However, these people died not because of lava, a study shows that these people mostly died due to the tsunami triggered by the volcano. In 1993 Okushiri, Japan, a tsunami that was 32 meters above sea level hit the pacific island with full force. The tsunami continued to cause damage when it all concentrated in a valley where it still maintained most of it's quantity.

Although stories from the past are scary, a really scary factor is still staring us in the face. There are multiple ways that can cause a tsunami to rise and damage, and these are already dangerous on their own. One way that has never been witnessed by human eyes is the possibility of a meteor impact, either this event only happens in areas distant from human living, or nobody who was there ever lived from it. Volcanoes can also lead to tsunamis, but the most common way is for an earthquake to occur, then a subduction zone occurs. As the waves reverbrate and the ocean recedes, it happens. There is a 500 mile an hour wave headed towards the coast, to make things worse, this wave never breaks, it literally engulfs the area it enters with water, and it loses little energy as it travels. In a sentence, it starts with a high amount of energy, doesn't lose much of that energy, and impacts the shore with the same energy it started off with. While people have a massive struggle to recover, it's not a piece of cake for the ocean to return to it's natural state. The ocean can reverbrate for days, like jello shaking on a plate, the ocean will proceed to be unstable until the vibrations are fully nullified.

One might wonder how water can be so deadly, well consider these thoughts. When a wave hits a sand castle, it doesn't break it, because it can't it's only water, it just withers away at the sand and takes it out into the ocean with it. However, buildings can't wither away like sand does, so consider this, water is heavy, we float in water because we are less dense than water, so when that 32 meter wall of water falls from the sky it's like being crushed by a giant iron board. Basically, the wave crushes the buildings into pieces and then when the wave recedes, it takes the unstable pieces away with it.

A tsunami is a deadly force of nature, causing hundreds to thousands of deaths and leaving buildings flattened. It's power can take so much from us and all we can do is learn from it. Because so many things can cause tsunamis, they are almost impossible to predict, they truly are an unstoppable force of nature.