TSUNAMI

Unit 3: People and the environment: Tsunami
Assalamualaikum wbt:
Do you want to know about tsunami?
So let’s read it up.......

A tsunami (pronounced /tsuːˈnɑːmi/) is a series of waves created when a body of water, such as an ocean, is rapidly displaced. Earthquakes, mass movements above or below water, some volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions, landslides, underwater earthquakes, large asteroid impacts and testing with nuclear weapons at sea all have the potential to generate a tsunami. The effects of a tsunami can be devastating due to the immense volumes of water and energy involved. Since meteorites are small, they will not generate a tsunami. The Greek historian Thucydides was the first to relate tsunamis to submarine quakes, but understanding of the nature of tsunamis remained slim until the 20th century and is the subject of ongoing research.

A tsunami made the news in December 2004: a monster wave, started by a magnitude-9 earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra. It overwhelmed long stretches of coastline along the Indian Ocean shore and drowned more than 100,000 people.

Here's what tsunamis are like. . .
You're sitting in your seaside house and you notice that the surf sounds different. You look out and see that the water has receded, as if the tide had pulled out in a hurry. The sea stays low for several minutes.
If you don't know about tsunamis, you stand and stare, or you ignore it and go back to your business. If you don't know better, you might even go down to the shore and start poking around the exposed seafloor with its stranded fish. Then the sea rises, as quickly and quietly as it left—then it keeps on rising, higher than you've ever seen it go. The sea grows louder and outruns you, catches your ankles, knocks you down, and smashes you against trees and rocks and buildings as you drown in its muddy, turbulent flow.
If you're smart, you start running for high ground immediately, and with luck you may survive. You may watch this flood come and go several times over the course of a few hours. With some tsunamis the water doesn't recede first, and that funny-sounding surf is the sea rising around your house without warning.

The tsunami that struck Thailand on December 26, 2004.

The term tsunami comes from the Japanese meaning harbor ("tsu", 津) and wave ("nami", 波). [a. Jap. tsunami, tunami, f. tsu harbour + nami waves. - Oxford English Dictionary]. For the plural, one can either follow ordinary English practice and add an s, or use an invariable plural as in Japanese. Tsunamis are common throughout Japanese history; approximately 195 events in Japan have been recorded.

A tsunami can be generated when converging or destructive plate boundaries abruptly move and vertically displace the overlying water. It is very unlikely that they can form at divergent (constructive) or conservative plate boundaries. This is because constructive or conservative boundaries do not generally disturb the vertical displacement of the water column. Subduction zone related earthquakes generate the majority of all tsunamis.

Wow....what a horrible about tsunami !...so we all must always pray hope our country safely to live...InsyaALLAH...amin

By: Zeti Nurul Akmar bt Ahmed Kamarzaman. A 115516