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Tsu-namis like those that wrea-ked havoc on Sunday, are massive waves usually caused by earthquakes deep under the ocean floor and can travel vast distances. Born of strong seismic shocks, tsunamis can reach huge heights and speeds, picking up strength as they cross the ocean — often with disastrous results thousands of kilometre from their origin.
Despite their strength, they can be barely noticeable out at sea. “If you are on a boat, you might not even feel a tsunami,” said Wong Wing-tak, senior scientific officer at the Hong Kong Obser-vatory. “It becomes powerful only when it is near the shore and reaches shallow water, which then can push waves over 10 times higher than the sea level.” While they can also be caused by landslides, volcanic eruptions, the most common cause is an undersea earthquake, especially in areas such as the Pacific where there is significant movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates. “Tidal waves are not a common phenomenon as usually only an earthquake that’s over 7.7 on the Richter scale is capable of causing tidal waves,” Wong said.
“Tsunamis travel outward in all directions from the epicentre of an earthquake and can savagely attack coastlines,” he said. “It can easily roll people out to the sea, it causes flooding, devastates property damage.” “The speed of tsunami is linked to the depth of the water. It can travel at several hundred kilometre per hour,” he said. In 1960, a huge tidal wave travelling at 750 kmph smashed into Japan, having been caused by a series of quakes in Chile on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds were left dead.
In September 1992, a tsunami destroyed the homes of some 13 million people on the Nicaraguan coast. Two months later, villagers in Bali in Indonesia were swept by a series of giant waves that left thousands dead. On July 17 1998 two quakes that measured seven on the Richter scale caused waves of 10-metre high that ravaged a 30-km stretch of the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. Seven villages were destroyed, and the official death toll was 2,123.
Alert to the destructive capacity of tsunamis, a tsunami alert centre in Hawaii collects information about possible tidal waves. Smaller tidal waves can also be caused by weather phenomenon, notably extreme thermal changes which can lead to depressions that cause strong winds. Tsunami is a Japanese word with the English translation, “harbour wave”. In the past, tsunamis were sometimes referred to as “tidal waves” by the general public, and as “seismic sea waves” by the scientific community.
How do tsunamis differ from other waves?
Tsunamis are unlike wind-generated waves on a lake or at a beach. They are characterised as shallow-water waves, with long periods and wave lengths. The wind-generated swell at a beach spawned by a storm in the sea and rolling in, one wave after another, might have a period of about 10 seconds and a wave length of 150 m. A tsunami can have a wavelength in excess of 100 km and period of one hour.
As a result of their long wave lengths, tsunamis behave as shallow-water waves. A wave becomes a shallow-water wave when the ratio between the water depth and its wave length gets very small. In the Pacific Ocean, where the typical water depth is about 4000m, a tsunami travels at about 200 m/s, or over 700 km/hr. Because the rate at which a wave loses its energy is the reverse of its wave length, tsunamis not only propagate at high speeds, they can also travel great, transoceanic distances and have power of nuclear bombs.
Source:Deccan Chronicle on the web
Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky. I was taking my morning swim around the island that my businessman-brother Geoffrey bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise just 200 yards from one of the world’s most beautiful beaches on the Sri Lankan mainland.
I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at me, ‘‘Come back! Come back! There’s something strange happening with the sea.’’ He was swimming behind me, but closer to the shore.
I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. All seemed peaceful. There was barely a ripple in the sea.
Then I noticed that the water around me was rising, climbing up the rock walls of the island with astonishing speed. The vast circle of golden sand around Welligama Bay was disappearing rapidly, and the water had reached the level of the coastal road fringed with palm trees.
As I swam to shore, my mind was momentarily befuddled by two conflicting impressions: the idyllic blue sky and the rapidly rising waters. In less than a minute, the water level had risen at least 15 feet — but the sea itself remained calm, barely a wave in sight.
Within minutes, the beach and the area behind it had become an inland sea, rushing over the road and pouring into the flimsy houses on the other side. The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible, a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before.
As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah’s Ark. Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold of a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat, next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran, as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road.
After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I didn’t realise was that the floodwaters would recede as dramatically as they had risen. All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed. Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current. The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings and were furiously bobbing up and down. For the first time, I felt afraid, powerless to prevent myself from being swept out to sea.
I swam in the direction of one of the loose catamarans, grabbed hold of the hull, and pulled myself to safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down and soon I was stranded on the sand.
As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screams and yells were coming from the houses behind the road, many of which were still half full of water, trapping the inhabitants inside. Villagers were walking dazed along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place.
I was worried about my wife who had been on the beach at the time I went for my swim. I eventually found her walking along the road, dazed and happy to be alive. She had been trying to wade back to our island, when the water had carried her across the road and into someone’s backyard. At one point she was underwater, struggling for breath. She finally grabbed a piece of rope and climbed onto a tree, while the waters raged beneath her.
Our children were still asleep when the tidal wave struck this morning at 9:15 am. They woke up to find the bay practically drained of water and their parents walking back across the narrow channel to safety.
The waves have been raging around the island for the rest of the day — alternatively rising and receding.
It took us many hours to realise the scale of the disaster of which we had witnessed a tiny part. The road from Welligama to Galle is cut in many places. There are reports of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people missing and drowned in southern Sri Lanka. The coastal road is littered with carcasses of boats and dead dogs. Even a few dead sharks have been washed up on the road. Helicopters are flying overhead and loudspeaker vans are warning local residents to leave low-lying areas for fear of more tidal waves.
My brother’s little island — called Tapbrobane after the ancient name of Sri Lanka — is largely intact, although a piece of our gate ended up on the seashore half a mile away. His house rests on a rock 60 feet above the level of the sea, which rose a maximum of 20 feet. We have no water, and no electricity and are practically cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka. It is impossible to buy food; we are existing on cold ham and turkey sandwiches, leftovers from last night’s Christmas Dinner.
The holiday that we planned and dreamed about for many months is in ruins. We feel fortunate — fortunate to be alive.
Source : Indian Express
Kanyakumari Collaborates
While we face a tough time ahead, I am glad that some WorldChanging stories can be reported, even in the face of the tsunami tragedy.
The picture is taken from the southernmost tip of India, where until today there were hundreds of tourists trapped at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, off the coast of Kanyakumari district. In an amazing display of humanitarian collaboration and bravery, the local fishermen saved roughly 500 of the 600 trapped people, while the role of relief agencies was severely limited by the breakdown of communications and bad weather. Even as I write this, most local media can only offer conflicting figures.
A majority of the deceased from the mainland were local fishermen who had gone out in the sea, to net their nightly catch. Throughout the day and night, and the following day, small boats and catamarans, perhaps too small to brave the violent sea, were plying up and down the strait that divides the island from the Indian mainland.
While the Indian Air Force kept dropping food and medical supplies, it is the fishermen who've kept the Kanyakumari death toll (524) as low as it is. Most of the saved were not locals, but tourists, including a Supreme Court judge.
There were no riots or cases of civic indiscipline reported in that district, nor in any other part of India, during the rescue efforts. Thankfully, the Indian media has taken due note of the effort.
Also, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, has offered extensive aid to Sri Lanka, and at least four Indian Navy ships have already carried medicines, food and water to Galle, one of the most affected areas in Sri Lanka.
One of my media friends is a TV show host, and is writing live accounts of the frenzy on our community blog while rushing around in search of loved ones.
We are also setting up a database of helplines and donation funds, more on that soon.
BPODigest: Founder
