Tsunami

A wave or series of waves that occur in an ocean or other large body of water and that are caused by some activity that displaces large amounts of water, such as seaquakes, landslides, large meteorite impacts or volcanic eruptions under the ocean. They can move hundreds of miles per hour out and away from their point of origin. Near seacoasts, tsunamis may become very large and cause great destruction, but in the deep open sea they cannot be detected by the eye. Tsunami is the Japanese word for "harbor wave," and are sometimes known as tidal waves. Some tsunamis may reach heights of 100 feet or more.

The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 formed waves that inundated whole districts in Java and Sumatra. Lisbon, Portugal (1755), and Hilo, Hawaii (1946), suffered disastrous floods from tidal waves caused by earthquakes.

The following text is from the book 'Great Disasters', published by the Reader's Digest Association, Inc...

Wrote the historian Ammianus Marcellinus of the catastrophe that befell Alexandria in 365 AD:

"On that fateful morning in July, the people of Alexandria were struck by horrible phenomena, such as are related to us neither in fable nor in truthful history. For a little after daybreak, preceded by heavy and repeated thunder and lightning, the whole of the firm and solid earth was shaken and trembled."

As the quake itself subsided, the waters of the Mediterranean began pulling away ominously from the coasts, "so that in the abyss of the deep thus revealed men saw many kinds of sea-creatures stuck fast in the slime; and vast mountains and deep valleys, which Nature, the creator, had hidden in the unplumbed depths... first saw the beams of the sun." Many people, thinking that the worst might be over, ventured into the suddenly shallow waters to gather stranded fish with their bare hands. But the worst was by no means over. The rapid drop in water level was soon followed by a tremendous wave that came crashing down on the city with all its terrifying power and fury. Ammianus described the scene in these words:

"The roaring sea, resenting, as it were, this forced retreat, rose in its turn... dashed mightily upon islands and broad stretches of the mainland, and leveled innumerable buildings.... The great mass of waters, returning when it was least expected, killed many thousands of men by drowning."

The unwise fishermen were no doubt among the drowned. So great was the force of the water that it lifted large ships and deposited them on the tops of buildings or carried them as far as two miles inland. Later, when the waters had receded, many ships "were found to have been destroyed, and the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces." In all, some 50,000 Alexandrians are thought to have perished in the earthquake and ensuing inundation.

In an age when extraordinary events were routinely attributed to God's will and disasters were viewed as divine punishment for man's sin, the earthquake caused astonishment and fear throughout the decaying Roman Empire. People apprehensively recalled previous calamities and spoke of this one as only a preview of worse things to come. But Alexandria itself — and its remarkably sturdy lighthouse — endured, and for generations afterward its citizens commemorated the earthquake and flood of 365 with a yearly festival. On each anniversary of the disaster, according to the fifth-century lawyer and historian Sozomen, Alexandrians would make "a general illumination throughout the city," offer "thankful prayers to God," and celebrate "very brilliantly and piously" their city's survival."

Date	Place	Description	Estimated Deaths
1645 BC	Crete	Generated by the volcanic eruption of the ancient Greek island of Santorini	Unknown
July 21, AD 365	Alexandria	Generated by earthquake	50.000 +
June 7, 1692	Port Royal, Jamaica	Generated by earthquake	Thousands
January 26, 1700	Pacific Northwest and Japan	Generated by the Cascadia Earthquake (estimated 9.0 magnitude)	Unknown
1703	Japan	Generated by earthquake	100,000
1707	Japan	Generated by earthquake	30,000
1737	Cape Lopatka, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia	210 ft (64 m) high wave generated by earthquake	Unknown
November 1, 1755	Lisbon, Portugal	Waves 20-50 ft (6-15 m) high generated by earthquake	10,000-60,000
1782	South China Sea	Generated by earthquake	40,000
1792	Island of Kyushu, Japan	Generated by the collapse of of one of Mount Unzen's several lava domes	15,030
February 20, 1835	Talcahuano, Chile	Generated by earthquake in Concepcion	Unknown
August 8, 1868	Arica, Chile	50 ft (15 m) wave generated by earthquake	25,000+
August 27, 1883	Krakatoa, Indonesia	Generated by eruption of volcano	36,000
June 15, 1896	Honshu, Japan	100 ft (30 m) wave generated by earthquake; destroyed 175 mile (280 km) coastline	27,122
September 8, 1900	Galveston, Texas	Tidal wave generated by hurricane	9,000
December 28, 1908	Messina in Sicily and Italian coastal cities	Earthquake and 26 ft (8.5 m) wave	120,000
September 1, 1923	Sagami Bay, Kanto Plain, Atami and Nebukawa, Japan	Earthquake, fire, mudslide and 36 ft (11 m) wave	145,000
November 18, 1929	Grand Banks, Newfoundland	Triggered by a sub-marine landslide and earthquake	29
March 3, 1933	Sanriku, Japan	Generated by earthquake	2,990
April 1, 1946	Hilo, Hawaii and Aleutian Islands, Alaska	Generated by earthquake on Unimak Island, Alaska, creating waves up to 112 ft (35 m) high	150-190
November 4, 1952	Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia	Triggered by earthquake	Six cows died in Hawaii, no human lives were lost
June 23, 1955	Near Patani, Thailand	Tidal wave caused by bad weather	500
March 9, 1957	Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Also Hawaii	Triggered by earthquake south of the Andreanof Islands	Thanks to a timely alarm from the International Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at Honolulu, no human lives were lost
July 9, 1958	Lituya Bay, Alaska	Earthquake caused huge slab of ice and rock to fall off nearby glacier into bay; giant splash formed tsunami	3
May 22, 1960	Chile	Generated by a series of earthquakes	450-2,290
May 22, 1960	Hilo, Hawaii	Generated by a series of earthquakes (same as Chile on the same date)	61
March 28, 1964	Prince William Sound, Alaska	An earthquake and subsequent landslides generated a series of tsunamis, the highest reaching close to 100 ft (31.7 m)	130
November 13, 1970	East Pakistan	Monster waves generated by cyclone	500,000 - 800,000
November 29, 1974	Bangladesh, off Cox's Bazaar	12 ft (3.7 m) waves generated by cyclone	20
November 29, 1975	Island of Hawaii	Earthquake off the coast of the Island of Hawaii generated waves between 5ft and 45 ft (1.5 m and 14.3 m) high	2
January 19, 1976	Ganges Delta, Bangladesh	Tidal wave caused by bad weather	800 fishermen
August 17, 1976	Mindanao, Philippines	Generated by earthquake	8,000
July 18, 1979	Lomblem Island, Indonesia	6 ft (1.83 m) wave generated by volcano collapse	539
October 16, 1979	Nice, France	Undersea landslides generated 2 tsunamis one week apart	23
1983	Western Japan	Generated by earthquake	104
September 1, 1992	Nicaragua	Earthquake caused series of waves 35 ft (11 m) high	170
December 12, 1992	Flores Island & Babi Island	Series of tsunamis, generated by earthquake. Waves ranging from 18 ft to 80 ft (5 m to 25 m) high, depending where they hit.	1690 (Flores) 263 (Babi)
July 12, 1993	Island of Okushiri, Japan	Underwater earthquake generated waves 16 ft to 100 ft (5 to 31.7 m) high	200 +
June 3, 1994	Eastern Java, Indonesia	Earthquakes caused series of waves more than 200 ft (60 m) high	223
November 11, 1994	Mindoro Island	Generated by earthquake. Waves 22 ft (7 m) high	70
May 17, 1995	South East Bangladesh	Tidal wave generated by vicious storm	100
October 9, 1995	Jalisco, Mexico	Generated by earthquake. Waves 35 ft (11 m) high	1
January 1, 1996	Minahassa Peninsula, area of Sulawesi	Generated by earthquake. Waves 12 ft (4 m) high	24
February 17, 1996	Biak, Irian Java	Generated by earthquake. Waves ranging from 15 ft to 30 ft (4.5 to 9 m) high	161
February 21, 1996	North Coast of Peru	Generated by earthquake. Waves 16.5 ft (5 m) high	12
November 17, 1996	Near Brownsville, Texas	10 ft (3 m) high wave caused by bad weather	10
July 17, 1998	Papua - New Guinea	Generated by earthquake. Waves ranging from 22 ft to 47 ft (7 m to 15 m) high	3,000
September 15, 1999	Fatu Hiva, Marquesas Islands	Generated by landslide. Two waves 16.5 ft (5 m) high	Property damage, no human lives were lost
December 26, 2004	India, Indonesia (Sumatra and Java), Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand	Generated by undersea earthquake.	250,000 +