Helene Le Roux,

02/ 06 / 2012 ,

Mrs. Medenca ,

Science,

7 B

Tsunami

Each year earth earth is subject to a deadly natural diaster called tsunami, wich sadly kills thousands of people each year. By the end of this essay you will be able to answer questions as; What are tsunamis? Where do they form? What are their effects? And how to limit their hight death rates?

A tsunami is often defined as a large, often destructive, sea wave produced by a submarine earthquake, subsidence, or volcanic eruption. It occurs when under the sea, a plate tectonic slips under another plate tectonic, it creates a terrestrial disturbance called earthquake (but earthquakes can also be created by volcanic eruptions) .The earthquake will create one big wave, called tsunami, that will slowly go toward the beach. As they get closer to the beach, the tsunami will slow down, and get bigger because of all the smalls and fast waves that will have accumulated to the tsunami. The earthquakes can also be created by volcanic eruptions.

Knowing that tsunamis are created by earthquakes, it is obvious that they will mostly occur next to the ring of fire. The ring of fire is an extensive zone of volcanic and seismic activity that coincides roughly with the borders of the Pacific Ocean, and is a zone were about 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes occur. Tsunamis is one of the deadliest natural disaster. To give an example, in 2004 on the island of Sumatra a Tsunami killed about 320　000 people not counting the injuries, which was declare as the deadliest Tsunami of the year. It creates Big floodings everywhere in the area and many people die drowning. One other reason of the high death rate cause by the tsunamies is the debris that it accumulates, wich help the wave to break every thing on its way. Those debris are often large and small every day objects such as: tables, chairs, cars, trees, parts of houses, vases and corpse of all sorts, that slowly got picked up by the wave. It is so deadly, that even after the disaster happened it takes a lot of days for the water to leave. Meanwhile the water has become contaminated which creates new victims.

Sadly, Stunamis can’t be prevented and are beyond human control. But hopefully scientist created many ways of limiting it’s devastating effects. Mainly, the T.W.S (tsunami warning system), it "has the functions of monitoring seismological and tidal stations throughout the Pacific Basin to evaluate potentially tsunamigenic earthquakes and disseminating tsunami warning information". As the P.T.W.C (Pacifique Warning System Convention) is placed in Hawaii, it has the function of sending all of their information to other countries that have risks of having tsunamis. An other way to reduce the tsunamis and earthquakes, big death rate in a country, is for them to build building specially conceive to resist the those disaster’s huge power.

Also, most schools are instructed to teach their students of the steps to do in case a tsunami occurs. They also recommend adults to follow the advice of local emergency and law enforcement authorities. But one of the most simple and obvious way to know if an earthquake or tsunami is coming, is to look at the behavior of the animals surrounding them. It is known that animal are much more sensitive then humans are. If there is a sudden change in their behavior, there is a high probability that something is wrong. Even though, whith all those techniques of prevention, they are not as precise as we would like them to be and can never totally prevent the inevitable. There will always be some lives of animals and human, taken away. Because even if there is an evacuation not everybody can afford or are willing to leave. And even in the survivors, many people without insurance would have been victims, as they have lost their house and all of their goods.

In conclusion it has been seen that tsunamis are very deadly as they kill thousands of people each year. Also, they have a deep connection with earthquakes and both of those natural disasters are being studied a lot as people try to prevent their devastating effects. As while, for now, we only succeded to protect a few percentage of the population. The instruments and methods used to intercept a tsunami before it occurs are not very precise, as animals’ sixth sense was almost always right, would there be a way of using it in the future, to limit tsunamis high death rates?

　

Bibliography

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(n.d.). Retrieved june 2, 2012, from iris: http://www.iris.edu/hq/files/programs/education_and_outreach/aotm/interactive/PNW_vs_Japan.swf

Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved june 2, 2012, from Dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Effects of Tsunamis. (n.d.). Retrieved june 2, 2012, from Universe Today: http://www.universetoday.com/39319/effects-of-tsunamis/

Ring of Fire. (n.d.). Retrieved june 2, 2012, from Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ring%20of%20fire

Tsunami Animation. (n.d.). Retrieved june 2, 2012, from Tsunami Safe: http://www.pep.bc.ca/tsunamis/causes_2.htm