Causes, Impact and Management of Tsunamis :: Papers

Causes, Impact and Management of Tsunamis Introduction On the 26th of December at 06:48 Sri Lankan time(11:48) whilst most of the population were just going to sleep after a long Christmas day, one of the worlds largest recorded earthquake struck generating a tsunami which left the Indian ocean countries with more than 162,000 people dead and $675 million(U.S)of damages. The earthquake hit countries that were already troubled with poverty and debt leaving them in need of urgent help. World wide, people responded to help overcome this horrific disaster donating $450million and the British government donated a pledge of $96million. The word ‘Tsunami’ is a Japanese word with the English translation, "harbor wave." Represented by two characters, the top character, "tsu," means harbor, while the bottom character, "nami," means "wave." In the past, tsunamis were sometimes referred to as "tidal waves" by the general public though they are not actually related to tides. Causes The devastating tsunami was caused by an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale and was estimated to have released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. The epicentre of the earthquake was under the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The violent movement of sections of the Earth's crust, known as tectonic plates, displaced an enormous amount of water, sending powerful shock waves in every direction. The earthquake was caused by the sliding of the India plate under the section called the Burma plate which is called a destructive plate boundary. The movement has been going on for a thousand years, one plate pushing against the other until something has to give. The result of this build up of pressure happened on December 26 was a rupture in the earths crust which was estimated more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometres) long, displacing the seafloor above Diagram showing the processes involved in a tsunami approaching a coastlineby 10 meters horizontally and several meters vertically. This small dislodge caused trillions of tons of rock to move along hundreds of Causes, Impact and Management of Tsunamis :: Papers Causes, Impact and Management of Tsunamis Introduction On the 26th of December at 06:48 Sri Lankan time(11:48) whilst most of the population were just going to sleep after a long Christmas day, one of the worlds largest recorded earthquake struck generating a tsunami which left the Indian ocean countries with more than 162,000 people dead and $675 million(U.S)of damages. The earthquake hit countries that were already troubled with poverty and debt leaving them in need of urgent help. World wide, people responded to help overcome this horrific disaster donating $450million and the British government donated a pledge of $96million. The word ‘Tsunami’ is a Japanese word with the English translation, "harbor wave." Represented by two characters, the top character, "tsu," means harbor, while the bottom character, "nami," means "wave." In the past, tsunamis were sometimes referred to as "tidal waves" by the general public though they are not actually related to tides. Causes The devastating tsunami was caused by an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale and was estimated to have released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. The epicentre of the earthquake was under the Indian Ocean near the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The violent movement of sections of the Earth's crust, known as tectonic plates, displaced an enormous amount of water, sending powerful shock waves in every direction. The earthquake was caused by the sliding of the India plate under the section called the Burma plate which is called a destructive plate boundary. The movement has been going on for a thousand years, one plate pushing against the other until something has to give. The result of this build up of pressure happened on December 26 was a rupture in the earths crust which was estimated more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometres) long, displacing the seafloor above Diagram showing the processes involved in a tsunami approaching a coastlineby 10 meters horizontally and several meters vertically. This small dislodge caused trillions of tons of rock to move along hundreds of