A tsunami is a series of great sea waves caused by an underwater earthquake, lan

dslide, or volcanic eruption. More rarely, a tsunami can be generated by a giant

meteor impact with the ocean.
Scientists have found traces of an asteroid-collision event that they say would
have created a giant tsunami that swept around the Earth several times, inundati
ng everything except the mountains 3.5 billion years ago. The coastline of the c
ontinents was changed drastically and almost all life on land was exterminated.
Tsunami (pronounced soo-NAH-mee) is a Japanese word. Tsunamis are fairly common
in Japan and many thousands of Japanese have been killed by them in recent centu
ries.
An earthquake generates a tsunami if it is of sufficient force and there is viol
ent movement of the earth causing substantial and sudden displacement of a massi
ve amount of water.
A tsunami is not a single wave but a series of waves, also known as a wave train
. The first wave in a tsunami is not necessarily the most destructive. Tsunamis
are not tidal waves.
Tsunami waves can be very long (as much as 60 miles, or 100 kilometers) and be a
s far as one hour apart. They are able to cross entire oceans without great loss
of energy. The Indian Ocean tsunami traveled as much as 3,000 miles (nearly 5,0
00 kilometers) to Africa, arriving with sufficient force to kill people and dest
roy property.
Scientists say that a great earthquake of magnitude 9 struck the Pacific Northwe
st in 1700, and created a tsunami that caused flooding and damage on the Pacific
coast of Japan.
When the ocean is deep tsunamis can travel unnoticed on the surface at speeds up
to 500 miles per hour (800 kilometers per hour), crossing the entire ocean in a
day or less. Scientists are able to calculate arrival times of tsunamis in diff
erent parts of the world based on their knowledge of when the event that generat
ed them occurred, water depths, and distances.
A tsunami may be less than a foot (30 centimeters) in height on the surface of t
he open ocean, which is why they are not noticed by sailors. But the powerful sh
ock wave of energy travels rapidly through the ocean as fast as a commercial jet
. Once a tsunami reaches shallow water near the coast it is slowed down. The top
of the wave moves faster than the bottom, causing the sea to rise dramatically.
Geological features such as reefs, bays, river entrances, and undersea formation
s may dissipate the energy of a tsunami. In some places a tsunami may cause the
sea to rise vertically only a few inches or feet. In other places tsunamis have
been known to surge vertically as high as 100 feet (30 meters). Most tsunamis ca
use the sea to rise no more than 10 feet (3 meters).
The Indian Ocean tsunami caused waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters) in some plac
es, according to news reports. In other places witnesses described a rapid surgi
ng of the ocean.
Flooding can extend inland by a thousand feet (300 meters) or more. The enormous
energy of a tsunami can lift giant boulders, flip vehicles, and demolish houses
. Knowledge of the history of tsunamis in your area is a good indicator of what
is likely to happen in a future tsunami event.
Tsunamis do not necessarily make their final approach to land as a series of gia
nt breaking waves. They may be more like a very rapidly rising tide. This may be
 accompanied by much underwater turbulence, sucking people under and tossing hea
vy objects around. Entire beaches have been stripped away by tsunamis.
Many people have said a tsunami sounds like a freight train.
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami could rank as the most devastating on record. News
reports so far suggest that more than 150,000 people may have lost their lives,
many of them washed out to sea.
The most damaging tsunami on record before 2004 was the one that killed an estim
ated 40,000 people in 1782 following an earthquake in the South China Sea. In 18
83 some 36,500 people were killed by tsunamis in the South Java Sea, following t
he eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa volcano. In northern Chile more than 25,000
people were killed by a tsunami in 1868.
The Pacific is by far the most active tsunami zone, according to the U.S. Nation
al Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But tsunamis have been generat
ed in other bodies of water, including the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, and
the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. North Atlantic tsunamis included the tsunami as
sociated with the 1775 Lisbon earthquake that killed as many as 60,000 people in
Portugal, Spain, and North Africa. This quake caused a tsunami as high as 23 fe
et (7 meters) in the Caribbean.
The Caribbean has been hit by 37 verified tsunamis since 1498. Some were generat
ed locally and others were the result of events far away, such as the earthquake
near Portugal. The combined death toll from these Caribbean tsunamis is about 9
,500.