Tsunami Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Tsunami - Essay Example In general, tsunamis normally consist of a sequence of waves which occur in stages ranging from minutes to hours and these arrive in what is usually referred to as a wave train (â€Å"Tsunami Fact-ite†). The height of tsunami waves, which are tens of meters high, can be generated by large events in the ocean, and although their brunt tends to be limited to shoreline areas, they have a massive power of devastation and they can also affect whole ocean basins. There are two ways through which tsunamis cause damage and one of these is the force of smashing water, which travels at high speeds. The other is the destructive power of large volumes of water which drain off the land, and takes everything with it, even if the wave that brought this water to land did not seem to be huge. While everyday wind waves have a wavelength of about a hundred meters and a height of roughly two meters, a tsunami in the deep ocean has a wavelength of about two hundred kilometers and such a wave may travel at well over eight hundred kilometers per hour (Nelson, 2). Owing to this huge wavelength the wave fluctuation at any given position takes  20 to 30  minutes to finish a cycle and has amplitude of only about one meter, which makes tsunamis exceedingly difficult to notice over deep water, and, in fact, many ships rarely notice their passage. A large tsunami may bring with it numerous waves, which arrive in interludes of hours, often having a certain term between the wave lengths (â€Å"Water Waves and Tsunamis†). It is a proven fact that the first wave to reach the coastline may not necessarily have a high run up and instead, those which come after it may have higher ones. About eighty percent of all tsunamis take place in the Pacific Ocean, but there is also a high possibility of them occurring whenever there is a unusually large water body, and this includes some lakes. Tsunamis have come to be some of the most feared natural