Are we swamped by tidal waves?
A tsunami is a powerful tidal wave coming in from the sea to unexpectedly flood the coast, mostly caused by a seaquake. A landslide, volcanic eruption or meteorite impact may have the same effect.
The super wave can travel hundreds or thousands of miles across the globe and get speeds in the ocean up to even 1,000 km / h.
It is not a surface wave, such as ordinary waves caused by wind, but a ground wave. With the rising coast a ground effect occurs. The front of the wave is impeded by the resistance of the sloping bottom, so that the back impresses the wave. The back rolls over the front and increases the roller wave even more. A wall of water can move kilometers inland, destroying everything on its path. The tsunami also pulls as strong back again, and there might be even more waves back and forth.
According tree rings was in 1628 BC on the Greek island of Santorini an eruption. That would have caused a one to 35 or even 150 meter high tidal wave at the north coast of Crete, by which the Minoan civilization was virtually wiped out.
Plato's story of the mythical Atlantis may be based on the tsunami disaster.
Even the Bible story about the retreat of the sea during the exodus from Egypt is associated with this tsunami.
Lisbon, November 1, 1755. After a devastating earthquake measuring 9 on the Richter scale, many fled the open beach to drown in unexpected onrushing water there. The French writer Voltaire has described this. The modest tsunami that followed in the North Sea was recorded as a port wave in Amsterdam.
The eruption of Krakatoa between the islands of Java and Sumatra on August 27, 1883 resulted in the narrow strait in enormous, reflecting tidal waves with heights of 35 meters. Waves swept with a speed up to 800 km per hour the villages along the coast. More than 36,000 people lost their lifes. Ships at the coast layers were found up to 15 km inland.
A huge boulder crashed on January 15, 1905 in the lake Lovatnet in Loen, Norway. The flood claimed 61 deaths. Same thing happened again on September 13, 1936. This time there were 74 deaths.
On April 1, 1946 a tsunami sweeps at Unimak Island in the Aleutian Islands (Alaska) 30 meters above sea level situated lighthouse, five people were killed. In Hawaii 160 victims fell.
The earthquake on the coast of Chile on May 22, 1960 caused 2,000 deaths. The flood came a day later in Japan, where 200 people were killed. In Hilo 61 victims fell.
A quake of only 7.0 on the Richter scale had caused an undersea landslide of four cubic kilometers which a 10- meter wall of water on July 17, 1998 in Papua New Guinea smashed: 12,000 dead.
After a volcanic eruption of Stromboli collapsed much of a mountainside in the sea on December 30, 2002 and caused a 10- meter high tidal wave. There were six casualties and much damage.
December 26, 2004, a severe earthquake of 9.3 on the Richter scale near the island of Sumatra, at a depth of about 10 kilometers. Heavy tidal waves up to 10 meters high hit several countries around the Bay of Bengal at speeds up to 900 kilometers per hour. There were about 290,000 victims in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Maldives, Seychelles and the Andaman Islands. 60% of the city of Banda Aceh on Sumatra was devastated by the tsunami. Here were more than 200,000 deaths. Until the African Somalia and Tanzania, the flood made several hundred victims.
On March 11, 2011 Japan was hit by a tsunami caused by an earthquake that occurred with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale at 132 kilometers off the coast of Sendai. The death toll is over 12,000, more than 15,000 people are missing. The Fukushima nuclear power plants are severely damaged. The real effects of radiation of released and leaked radioactive cooling water are not actually estimated. Information is very scarce, which in itself is disturbing. 20 million tonnes of Japanese tsunami debris is heading to Hawaii. The TVs, refrigerators and furniture drive faster than previously thought to the shores of the United States.
The Cumbre Vieja (old top) is a group of active volcanoes in the southern part of the Canary Island of La Palma. The outbreak in 1971 was followed by several earthquakes in which a part of the island moved four meters towards the sea.
Pieces of its flanks are definitely lost twice before in prehistoric times. And during the eruption in 1949, there appeared a two -kilometer-long crack at the top of the southwestern flank.
An outbreak of the Cumbre Vieja would trigger a landslide that can cause a mega – tsunami. The tidal waves would be able to continue at the speed of a plane and be 30 to possibly hundreds of meters high as they reach the coast of the U.S.. Cities like New York, Boston, Lisbon and Casablanca would be wiped out largely from the earth.
From new research at TU Delft appears as team leader professor Jan Nieuwenhuis says that the volcano is more stable than assumed before.
It may also be hundreds or thousands of years before this happens, or it may be gradual, with no major tsunami.
According to a study by the University of Miami tropical storms can also cause earthquakes. They reduce the pressure on tectonic plates, making them shift.
Especially when combined with heavy rainfall, this is leading to thousands of landslides and extensive erosion. The soil loses material this way and so is depressurized, which facilitates movement of tectonic plates.
As not (yet) demonstrable by human reason caused earthquakes and tsunamis are in conspiracy circles also called underground nuclear bomb tests and HAARP (High -frequency electromagnetic radiation and distortion of the ionosphere).
Tsunami: the farther the disaster, the more deaths there need to be to make it news. (Arthur Bloch)