When the tsunami disaster occurred, the whole world felt the devastation. People from all over the world offered their support and sent money to help victims. Their helping hands were appreciated by thousands and blessed the hearts of families. Instead of saying that different parts of the world should deal with their own problems, everyone made other countries problems their own. The tsunami caused astronomical numbers of damage towards the United States. This massive impact of the tsunami was attributed by devastating earthquakes, debris flowing through landslides, and lava erupting volcanoes.
Earthquakes generate most tsunami. The past decade has witnessed mounting evidence of tsunami parented by submarine landslides. In fact, submarine landslides have become prime suspects in the creation of “surprise tsunami” from small or distant earthquakes a tsunami sprung from a spontaneous submarine landslide. The geography of earthquakes only casually resembles the geography of submarine landslides.
Landslides tsunami hazards to areas like the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, or the eastern seaboard of the US. A 5-meter sea wave striking there would over-run far more territory than a similar wave hitting a rugged shore, such as California's north coast (Barrow 9).
Landslides offer no physical or statistical warning for safety procedures. Earthquake monitoring systems wouldn’t pick it up, experts say. So the first time the public knows about the tsunami might be when it slams into the shore. The main cause of future landslide would be unusually heavy rainfall, and recommends extra tree planting around the new quarry site (Loftis 20).
“Volcano eruptions come in huge variety of shapes and sizes and have cataclysmic explosions that can destroy a town or even a small country.” (McGuire 9). Some super eruptions are distanced from standard eruptions by the amount of ash and debris the eject.
What is a super volcano, what is a volcano? A volcano itself is a hill or mountain with vents to the crusts of the earth that let magma sit under or in the mountain. “A super volcano is any volcano capable of producing a volcanic eruption with an ejecta volume greater than 1,000 km3 (240 cu mi). This is thousands of times larger than normal volcanic eruptions. Super volcanos are on a much bigger scale than other volcanoes. Unlike composite volcanoes, with their steep sides, they are difficult to spot.” (Internet Geography, geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk) An average volcano in the world would just cause local damage, but this super volcano could end life on earth. Not just with the eruption but the ash would cause a volcanic winter blocking the sun to long and then even more the ash would choke everything out and collapse roofs. Yea Rainier would kill thousands of people, but Yellowstone would literally kill billions plus of people. In comparison, Rainier is a little fly and Yellowstone is a Griffin {The big eagle lion bird thing}. Yellowstone has the capability to erupt 1,000 times stronger than Rainier ever could.
Tsunamis can go the same speed as a jetliner and that massive wave can out run the fastest runner. When there is a lot of waves at once, or the water goes back that is a sign that a tsunami is coming. If that tsunami is far then people need to get to the tallest and strongest building there is in the city that way they are safe and helicopter can pick them up. Tsunamis can wipe out an entire city or 1/4 of the country. Tsunamis can last up to an hour, or more.
The tsunami in Thailand that occurred on December 26, 2004, was by far the largest tsunami catastrophe in human history. It was triggered by a magnitude 9.1-9.3 earthquake along the Indian-Australian subduction zone off the northern coast of Sumatra. The tsunami waves traveled primarily in the east to west direction and caused major damage along the coasts of southern Thailand. Unpredictably, it was a violent earthquake beneath the sea that initiated the massive waves and struck more than a dozen countries in Southern Asia. It also destroyed thousands of miles of coastline and even submerged entire islands permanently. Throughout the region, the tsunami killed more than 150,000 people, and a million more were hurt, homeless, and without food or drinkable water, making it perhaps the most destructive tsunami in the modern history. In spite of peninsular Thailand's location facing the northern part of this subduction zone, the lack of any written historical records, together with the lack of any major local seismic activity, the tsunami caused thousands of fatalities and huge economic losses in the popular tourist regions in Thailand. Immediately after the disaster, numerous organizations and individual citizens have helped out and contributed to this devastating tsunami. Indeed, the tsunami in Thailand was a worldwide event, with significant wave action felt around the world. In this context, I am focusing more on the key features of the tsunami’s natural causes, the psychological effects on citizens, the perspective of socio-economic impacts and the consequences of the tsunami calamity.
Predicting tsunamis is not a precise art; unlike some natural disasters, tsunamis are not climate based and do not happen during a particular season. In the case of the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, an ocean-based sensors and a warning system in place could have been an enormous help. At the time of the tsunami, there were no ocean-based sensors in place in the Indian Ocean—which lead to a lack of knowledge of the tsunami, resulting in a lack of a plan to move to higher ground resulting in 230,000 were killed due to the Boxing Day
According to the maps, the North Western part of Seattle is has about 10-11 people per acre so the area is densely populated. This could be vulnerability for Seattle because high-elevated areas cause the maximum destruction. With an earthquake of magnitude 7.5, this area would cause the maximum deaths. We also see that west most part of Seattle is highly prone to landslides (according to the map Liquefaction Zones and Land Slide Prone Areas), but the overall land of Seattle is fairly elevated. Earthquakes are one of the main triggers that cause landslides. Earthquake induced landslides have been documented from as early as 372 BC (Keefer, 1984) and have caused tens of thousands of deaths and billions in economic losses (Keefer, 1984). Landslides have been a product of 40 of 56 documented earthquakes in present times around the world (Keefer, 1984). Topographic relief has an effect on the intensity of the waves propagating through the ground. Seismic waves are made of primary, secondary, and surface waves. Surface waves are the slowest type of wave but they cause landslides most often because they move particles in a swaying motion. Waves are amplified due to topography as seismic waves enter the base of a topographic ridge, are partially reflected back into the rock mass, and
The eruption on Mount Saint Helens has a specific cause and comes with many effects. A multifold of people would say that the “mountain looked like the site of an atomic blast” (Bredeson 30). That is a very accurate depiction as it took great power to inflict as much damage as it did. The reason for this impressive amount of force is that when magma is built up with pressure and an earthquake hits, the pressure gets magnified and the volcano explodes (Lewis). This is exactly what happened inside Mount Saint Helens. Furthermore, it has been revealed that “The earthquake that triggered the explosion was a 5.2 on the Richter scale” (Gunn 559). The earthquake to the magma can be compared as a match to gasoline. Even though the earthquake was not huge, the scale of the eruption was much greater than that of the earthquake (Gunn 560). The earthquake was only the trigger that allowed for more devastating things to occur. Thirteen hundred feet of the volcano were lost in the explosion followed by landslides, mudslides, and lava flows...
Super Volcanoes There is no exact definition for a super volcano, but the expression is often used to refer to volcanoes that have produced extraordinarily large eruptions in the past. When one of these large eruptions occurs, a huge amount of material is blasted out of the super volcano, leaving a massive crater or caldera. A caldera can be as much as forty or fifty miles wide. At Yellowstone, the caldera is so big that it includes a fair amount of the entire park. In effect, it is so big that at first scientists didn't see the state a caldera had until it was photographed from space.
Additionally, this earthquake occurred on a thrust fault. This fault was a subduction zone slip which occurred primarily beneath the ocean were the Pacific plate plunges underneath the North American plate. This sudden upward movement of the sea floor along the rupturing fault generated a massive tsunami. This vertical deformation
Volcanoes can be one of the most destructive forces on Earth. It is estimated that some
While the early warning saved thousands of people, the Japan’s Meteorological Agency underestimated this earthquake as the subduction zone of Japan should not produce the magnitude 9.0 quake (Oskin, 2013a). The Tohoku Earthquake and its tsunami approximately killed 16 thousand people, injured 6 thousand people and around 3 thousand people were missing. Most people died from drowning. Around 300 thousand buildings, 4000 roads, 78 bridges, and many more were affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and fires from leaking oils and gas. Electricity, telecommunication, and railways were severely damaged. The debris of 25 million tons was generated and carried out to the sea by water (BBC News, 2012). The country’s authorities estimated more than 309 billion US dollars of damages. Landslides occurred in Miyagi and liquefaction in Chiba, Tokyo, Odaiba, and Urayasu (USGS, 2013). Furthermore, the tsunami destroyed protective tsunami seawalls. Approximately 217 square miles of Japan covered in water (Oskin,
... mitigation strategies. Analysis of several landslides within the New Madrid Seismic Zone indicated that the landslides were stable, but failure is possible during an earthquake of the magnitude experienced in 1812.
It was a beautiful day like any other with the clear blue sky and the
The death toll climbs to over 10,000 and is still rising (Branigan 2). The disaster in Japan began without warning on Friday March 11, 2011 at 2:46pm with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in the country (Fackler 3). A massive thirty-three foot high tsunami, generated by the earthquake, swept over lands in northern Japan, taking objects and debris with it. To make matters worse, the tsunami caused the cooling systems at several nuclear power plants to fail. The disaster in Japan was a tragic event, and it had a plethora of causes and effects.
Earthquakes belong to the class of most disastrous natural hazards. They result in unexpected and tremendous earth movements. These movements results from dissemination of an enormous amount of intense energy in form of seismic waves which are detected by use of seismograms. The impact of earthquakes leaves behind several landmarks including: destruction of property, extensive disruption of services like sewer and water lines, loss of life, and causes instability in both economic and social components of the affected nation (Webcache 2).