The largest tsunami in Alaska was 1958. The highest tsunami wave in history. Fresh research

On July 9, 1958, an unusually severe disaster occurred in Lituya Bay in southeastern Alaska. A strong earthquake occurred on the Fairweather fault, causing the destruction of buildings, the collapse of the coast, and the formation of numerous cracks. And a huge landslide on the mountainside above the bay caused a wave of a record height of 524 m, which swept at a speed of 160 km/h across the narrow, fjord-like bay.

“After the first shock, I fell out of bed and looked towards the beginning of the bay, where the noise was coming from. The mountains trembled terribly, stones and avalanches rushed down. And the glacier in the north was especially striking; it is called the Lituya glacier. It is usually not visible from where I was anchored. People shake their heads when I tell them that I saw him that night. I can't help it if they don't believe me. I know that the glacier is not visible from where I was anchored in Anchorage Bay, but I also know that I saw it that night. The glacier rose into the air and moved forward until it became visible. He must have risen several hundred feet. I'm not saying it was just hanging in the air. But he was shaking and jumping like crazy. Large pieces of ice fell from its surface into the water. The glacier was six miles away, and I saw large chunks falling off it like a huge dump truck. This continued for some time - it is difficult to say how long - and then suddenly the glacier disappeared from view and a large wall of water rose above this place. The wave went in our direction, after which I was too busy to say what else was happening there.”

Lituya is a fjord located on the Fairweather fault in the northeastern part of the Gulf of Alaska. It is a T-shaped bay 14 kilometers long and up to three kilometers wide. The maximum depth is 220 m. The narrow entrance to the bay is only 10 m deep. Two glaciers descend into Lituya Bay, each of which is about 19 km long and up to 1.6 km wide. During the century preceding the events described, waves over 50 meters high had already been observed in Lituya several times: in 1854, 1899 and 1936.

The 1958 earthquake caused a subaerial rockfall at the mouth of the Gilbert Glacier in Lituya Bay. This landslide caused more than 30 million cubic meters of rock to fall into the bay and create a megatsunami. This disaster killed 5 people: three on Hantaak Island and two more were washed away by a wave in the bay. In Yakutat, the only permanent settlement near the epicenter, infrastructure was damaged: bridges, docks and oil pipelines.

After the earthquake, a study was carried out of a subglacial lake located northwest of the bend of the Lituya Glacier at the very beginning of the bay. It turned out that the lake dropped by 30 meters. This fact served as the basis for another hypothesis of the formation of a giant wave more than 500 meters high. Probably, during the glacier's descent, a large volume of water entered the bay through an ice tunnel under the glacier. However, the runoff of water from the lake could not be the main cause of the megatsunami.

A huge mass of ice, stones and earth (volume of about 300 million cubic meters) rushed down from the glacier, exposing the mountain slopes. The earthquake destroyed numerous buildings, cracks appeared in the ground, and the coastline slid. The moving mass fell on the northern part of the bay, filled it up, and then crawled onto the opposite slope of the mountain, tearing off the forest cover from it to a height of more than three hundred meters. The landslide generated a giant wave that literally swept Lituya Bay towards the ocean. The wave was so great that it swept entirely over the entire sandbank at the mouth of the bay.

Eyewitnesses to the disaster were people on board the ships that dropped anchor in the bay. The terrible shock threw them all out of their beds. Jumping to their feet, they could not believe their eyes: the sea rose. “Giant landslides, raising clouds of dust and snow in their path, began to run along the slopes of the mountains. Soon their attention was attracted by an absolutely fantastic sight: the mass of ice of the Lituya glacier, located far to the north and usually hidden from view by the peak that rises at the entrance to the bay, seemed to rise above the mountains and then majestically collapsed into the waters of the inner bay. It all seemed like some kind of nightmare. Before the eyes of the shocked people, a huge wave rose up and swallowed the foot of the northern mountain. After that, she swept across the bay, tearing trees off the mountain slopes; falling like a water mountain onto the island of Cenotaph... rolled over the highest point of the island, rising 50 m above sea level. This entire mass suddenly plunged into the waters of the narrow bay, causing a huge wave, the height of which apparently reached 17-35 m. Its energy was so great that the wave rushed furiously across the bay, sweeping the slopes of the mountains. In the inner basin, the impact of the waves on the shore was probably very strong. The slopes of the northern mountains facing the bay were bare: where there had once been dense forest there were now bare rocks; This pattern was observed at altitudes of up to 600 meters.

One longboat was lifted high, easily carried across the sandbar and dropped into the ocean. At that moment, when the longboat was carried over the sandbank, the fishermen on it saw standing trees underneath them. The wave literally threw people across the island into the open sea. During a nightmare ride on a giant wave, the boat pounded against trees and debris. The longboat sank, but the fishermen miraculously survived and were rescued two hours later. Of the other two longboats, one safely withstood the wave, but the other sank, and the people on it went missing.

Miller found that the trees growing at the upper edge of the exposed area, just below 600 m above the bay, were bent and broken, their fallen trunks pointing towards the top of the mountain, but the roots were not torn from the soil. Something pushed these trees up. The enormous force that accomplished this could not have been anything other than the top of a gigantic wave that swept over the mountain on that July evening in 1958.”

Mr. Howard J. Ulrich, in his yacht, which is called "Edri", entered the waters of Lituya Bay about eight in the evening and anchored in nine meters of water in a small cove on the southern shore. Howard says that suddenly the yacht began to rock violently. He ran out onto the deck and saw how in the northeastern part of the bay the rocks began to move due to the earthquake and a huge block of rock began to fall into the water. About two and a half minutes after the earthquake, he heard a deafening sound from the destruction of rock.

“We definitely saw that the wave came from Gilbert Bay, just before the earthquake ended. But at first it was not a wave. At first it was more like an explosion, as if the glacier was splitting into pieces. The wave grew from the surface of the water, at first it was almost invisible, who would have thought that then the water would rise to a height of half a kilometer.”

Ulrich said that he observed the entire process of development of the wave, which reached their yacht in a very short time - something like two and a half to three minutes from the time it could first be noticed. “Since we didn’t want to lose the anchor, we pulled out the entire anchor chain (about 72 meters) and started the engine. Halfway between the northeastern edge of Lituya Bay and Cenotaf Island, a thirty-meter-high wall of water could be seen that stretched from one shore to the other. When the wave approached the northern part of the island, it split into two parts, but after passing the southern part of the island, the wave became one again. It was smooth, only there was a small ridge on top. When this mountain of water approached our yacht, its front was quite steep and its height was from 15 to 20 meters. Before the wave arrived at the place where our yacht was located, we did not feel any drop in the water or other changes, with the exception of a slight vibration that was transmitted through the water from the tectonic processes that began to operate during the earthquake. As soon as the wave approached us and began to lift our yacht, the anchor chain crackled violently. The yacht was carried towards the southern shore and then, on the reverse course of the wave, towards the center of the bay. The top of the wave was not very wide, from 7 to 15 meters, and the trailing front was less steep than the leading one.

As the giant wave swept past us, the surface of the water returned to its normal level, but we could see a lot of turbulence around the yacht, as well as random waves six meters high that moved from one side of the bay to the other. These waves did not create any noticeable movement of water from the mouth of the bay to its northeastern part and back.”

After 25-30 minutes the surface of the bay calmed down. Near the banks one could see many logs, branches and uprooted trees. All this rubbish slowly drifted towards the center of Lituya Bay and towards its mouth. In fact, during the entire incident, Ulrich did not lose control of the yacht. When the Edri approached the entrance to the bay at 11 pm, a normal current could be observed there, which is usually caused by the daily ebb of ocean water.

Other eyewitnesses to the disaster, the Swenson couple on a yacht called the Badger, entered Lituya Bay around nine in the evening. First, their ship approached Cenotaf Island, and then returned to Anchorage Bay on the northern shore of the bay, not far from its mouth (see map). The Svensons anchored at a depth of about seven meters and went to bed. William Swenson's sleep was interrupted by strong vibrations from the yacht's hull. He ran to the control room and began to time what was happening. A little over a minute after William first felt the vibration, and probably just before the end of the earthquake, he looked towards the northeastern part of the bay, which was visible against the backdrop of Cenotaph Island. The traveler saw something that he initially mistook for the Lituya glacier, which rose into the air and began to move towards the observer. “It seemed like this mass was solid, but it jumped and swayed. Large pieces of ice were constantly falling into the water in front of this block.” After a short time, “the glacier disappeared from view, and instead of it a large wave appeared in that place and went in the direction of the La Gaussi spit, just where our yacht was anchored.” In addition, Svenson noticed that the wave flooded the shore at a very noticeable height.

When the wave passed Cenotaf Island, its height was about 15 meters in the center of the bay and gradually decreased near the shores. She passed the island approximately two and a half minutes after she was first seen, and reached the yacht Badger another eleven and a half minutes (approximately). Before the wave arrived, William, like Howard Ulrich, did not notice any drop in water level or any turbulent phenomena.

The yacht "Badger", which was still at anchor, was lifted by a wave and carried towards the La Gaussie spit. The stern of the yacht was below the crest of the wave, so that the position of the vessel resembled a surfboard. Svenson looked at that moment at the place where the trees growing on the La Gaussy spit should have been visible. At that moment they were hidden by water. William noted that above the tops of the trees there was a layer of water equal to approximately two times the length of his yacht, about 25 meters. Having passed the La Gaussi spit, the wave subsided very quickly.

In the place where Swenson's yacht was moored, the water level began to drop, and the ship hit the bottom of the bay, remaining afloat not far from the shore. 3-4 minutes after the impact, Swenson saw that water continued to flow over the La Gaussie Spit, carrying logs and other debris from forest vegetation. He wasn't sure it wasn't a second wave that could have carried the yacht across the spit into the Gulf of Alaska. Therefore, the Svenson couple left their yacht, moving onto a small boat, from which they were picked up by a fishing boat a couple of hours later.

There was a third vessel in Lituya Bay at the time of the incident. It was anchored at the entrance to the bay and was sunk by a huge wave. None of the people on board survived; two were believed to have died.

What happened on July 9, 1958? That evening, a huge rock fell into the water from a steep cliff overlooking the northeastern shore of Gilbert Bay. The collapse area is marked in red on the map. The impact of an incredible mass of stones from a very high altitude caused an unprecedented tsunami, which wiped out from the face of the earth all life that was located along the entire coast of Lituya Bay right up to the La Gaussi spit. After the wave passed along both shores of the bay, there was not only no vegetation left, but even no soil; there was bare rock on the surface of the shore. The damaged area is shown in yellow on the map.

The numbers along the shore of the bay indicate the height above sea level of the edge of the damaged land area and approximately correspond to the height of the wave that passed here.

On March 9, 1957, an earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale occurred in the Andrean Islands in Alaska. This earthquake led to the formation of two tsunamis, with average wave heights reaching 15 m and 8 m, respectively. More than 300 people died. The earthquake was accompanied by the eruption of the Vsevidov volcano on the island of Umnak, which had been “hibernating” for about 200 years.

The consequences of the tremors affected the island of Andrianova Spit, where damage was caused to buildings, two bridges were destroyed, and cracks appeared in the roads. Even greater destruction was caused by the subsequent tsunami, which reached the Hawaiian Islands, the coasts of California, Chile and Japan. Two villages were destroyed in Hawaii, causing $5 million in damage.

Tsunami in Lituya Bay in 1958

On July 9, 1958, an unusually severe disaster occurred in Lituya Bay in southeastern Alaska. In this bay, which extends more than 11 km into the land, geologist D. Miller discovered a difference in the age of trees on the hillside surrounding the bay. Based on tree rings, he estimated that over the past 100 years, waves with a maximum height of several hundred meters have occurred in the bay at least four times. Miller's conclusions were viewed with great distrust. And then on July 9, 1958, a strong earthquake occurred on the Fairweather fault north of the bay, causing the destruction of buildings, the collapse of the coast, and the formation of numerous cracks. And a huge landslide on the mountainside above the bay caused a wave of record height (524 m), which swept through the narrow, fjord-like bay at a speed of 160 km/h.

Aerial photo of destructive landslides in Anchorage, Graben, L Street. Photo
A. Grantz. Anchorage in Cook County, Alaska.

A huge mass of ice, stones and earth (volume of about 300 million cubic meters) rushed down from the glacier, exposing the mountain slopes. The earthquake destroyed numerous buildings, cracks appeared in the ground, and the coastline slid. The moving mass fell on the northern part of the bay, filled it up, and then crawled onto the opposite slope of the mountain, tearing off the forest cover from it to a height of more than three hundred meters. The landslide generated a giant wave that literally swept Lituya Bay towards the ocean. The wave was so great that it swept entirely over the entire sandbank at the mouth of the bay.

Eyewitnesses to the disaster were people on board the ships that dropped anchor in the bay. The terrible shock threw them all out of their beds. Jumping to their feet, they could not believe their eyes: the sea rose. “Giant landslides, raising clouds of dust and snow in their path, began to run along the slopes of the mountains. Soon their attention was attracted by an absolutely fantastic sight: the mass of ice of the Lituya glacier, located far to the north and usually hidden from view by the peak that rises at the entrance to the bay, as if it rose above the mountains and then majestically fell into the waters of the inner bay. All this looked like some kind of nightmare. Before the eyes of the shocked people, a huge wave rose up, which swallowed the foot of the northern mountain. After that, it swept across the bay, tearing off trees from the slopes of the mountains. ; having fallen like a water mountain onto the island of Cenotaph... it rolled over the highest point of the island, rising 50 m above sea level. This entire mass suddenly plunged into the waters of the narrow bay, causing a huge wave, the height of which apparently reached 17-35 m. the energy was so great that the wave rushed violently across the bay, sweeping the slopes of the mountains. In the inner basin, the impacts of the wave on the shore were probably very strong. The slopes of the northern mountains facing the bay were bare: where there had once been dense forest there were now bare rocks; This pattern was observed at altitudes of up to 600 meters.

One longboat was lifted high, easily carried across the sandbar and dropped into the ocean. At that moment, when the longboat was carried over the sandbank, the fishermen on it saw standing trees underneath them. The wave literally threw people across the island into the open sea. During a nightmare ride on a giant wave, the boat pounded against trees and debris. The longboat sank, but the fishermen miraculously survived and were rescued two hours later. Of the other two longboats, one safely withstood the wave, but the other sank, and the people on it went missing.

Miller found that the trees growing at the upper edge of the exposed area, just below 600 m above the bay, were bent and broken, their fallen trunks pointing towards the top of the mountain, but the roots were not torn from the soil. Something pushed these trees up. The enormous force that accomplished this could not be anything other than the top of a gigantic wave that swept over the mountain on that July evening in 1958.”

A tsunami almost 200 meters high is not science fiction or the invention of Hollywood directors. Such extreme events occur on Earth, and the latest one happened just recently - just three years ago, off the coast of Alaska.

Scientists call what happened in October 2015 in the Taan fjord in the southeast of the state the fourth largest tsunami, reliably recorded, albeit after the fact, in the last hundred years. And its cause - the melting of a glacier, which led to a giant landslide, leads scientists to believe that similar catastrophic events may increasingly occur in different parts of the world in the future. “More of these landslides will occur as mountain glaciers and permafrost melt,” a team led by Bretwood Hyman suggests in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports .

“40 years ago the Taan fjord did not exist at all. It was filled with ice,” explained Dan Sugar, a geophysicist at the University of Washington in Tacoma, one of the 32 authors of the paper, including scientists from the United States, Canada and Germany.

However, between 1961 and 1991, the Tyndall Glacier retreated approximately 300 meters and stopped at its current position. However, the retreat of the glacier from the coastal entrance not only completely exposed the fjord. This process shifted the ice that previously supported a huge mass of rocks that had lost their support.

Calculations showed that as a result of the landslide, about 180 million tons of stones and soil fell into the bay, which caused a tsunami.

When the unsupported mass of rocks rushed into a rather narrow bay, it created a huge tsunami,

the wave of which rushed at a speed of about 100 kilometers per hour, scientists calculated.

“Imagine a bowling ball being put in your bathtub,” Sugar explained. — The water will move in all directions, but when it hits the wall, it will have nowhere to go. And the only way out will be up.”

According to the expert, this tsunami was not the highest known to science, but close to a record one. By the way, its destructive effect extended along approximately 20 kilometers of the fjord coast.

“The highest documented tsunami was the Lituya Bay tsunami, and this was a fairly similar event - the landslide went down, hit the tip of the glacier and entered the water of the fjord,” Sugar explained. “In that case, it was preceded by a major earthquake.”

Then, in 1958, the height of the tsunami that hit the shore reached 500 meters, killing five people.

A seismic response helped scientists understand that a landslide occurred in the Taan fjord, and they arrived there relatively quickly - after eight months. On site, they began to examine the coastline, fallen trees, piles of stones and other debris brought by the tsunami.

Downed trees in Alaska

washingtonpost.com

As a result of this giant tsunami, which was observed in a closed fjord, no one was injured, but scientists admit that, for example, a cruise ship could have been located inside such a fjord at the wrong time. In addition, not long ago, a similar tsunami caused by a melting glacier in Greenland killed four people.

Based on their findings, scientists propose to search for and monitor similar places on Earth. In their opinion, such tsunamis could create danger off the coast of Greenland, Patagonia and Norway. “The authors are definitely right in suggesting that potential hazard zones should be identified, mapped and monitored to minimize future damage from tsunamis caused by landslides,” said Martin Lüthi, a geographer at the University of Zurich who was not involved in the study.

“The landslide and tsunami caused by glacier melt in Taan Fjord demonstrate the threat posed by climate change,” the authors write. Meanwhile, tsunamis are not the only catastrophic consequences that can be caused by melting glaciers. In the mountains, melting ice can lead to the formation of high-altitude lakes, which can burst at one point, causing landslides and floods with serious consequences.

On the eve that numerous natural disasters threaten the territory of Russia as a result of global warming, which in our country is happening faster than the average on the planet. It is possible that Russians will soon face droughts in some regions and floods in others. These processes will entail the destruction of radioactive material disposal sites and civil infrastructure, destruction of crops, shutdowns of power plants and, ultimately, technological disasters. The melting of permafrost will bring inevitable disasters.

On December 26, 2004, a powerful earthquake occurred in the Indian Ocean, and a few minutes later a tsunami hit southern Asia. 18 countries were affected by the disaster. On the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, we decided to recall the most destructive tsunamis of our time

Severo-Kurilsk. 1952

In 1952, at about 5 o'clock in the morning, a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 8.3 to 9 occurred in Severo-Kurilsk. It resulted in three tsunami waves up to 18 meters high. The city was destroyed, and 2,336 people became victims of the disaster.

The tsunami was caused by tremors, the epicenter of which was in the Pacific Ocean, 130 kilometers from the coast of Kamchatka. The first wave came an hour after the earthquake, most of the local residents fled from the tsunami on a hill outside the city, and soon returned home, not expecting subsequent waves. However, the insidious elements were preparing a surprise for the North Kuriles - a second wave 18 meters high. It took people by surprise, destroyed almost all houses and killed more than two thousand people. Later the third wave came, but it was much weaker than the first two.

The rescue operation in Severo-Kurilsk was carried out using airplanes and all available ships. A significant part of the population was evacuated to Sakhalin. According to official data, the disaster claimed the lives of 2,336 people. Later the city was rebuilt. And the government of the USSR decided to create a tsunami warning system in the country.

USA, Lituya Bay. 1958

On July 9, 1958 at 10:15 p.m., as a result of a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 to 8.3 in Lituya Bay (Alaska, US), a landslide came down from the mountains. Tens of millions of cubic meters of rocks and ice fell into the waters of the bay. This led to the formation of a megatsunami 500 meters high. Five people died as a result of the disaster.

The powerful tsunami was caused by an earthquake whose epicenter was located in the Fairweather Ridge area, approximately 20 kilometers southeast of Lituya Bay. The tremors were the strongest in the region in more than 50 years. 500-meter waves damaged infrastructure: bridges, docks and oil pipelines. This is the highest tsunami wave known to mankind.

After the earthquake, a study was carried out of a subglacial lake located northwest of the bend of the Lituya Glacier at the very beginning of the bay. It turned out that it dropped 30 meters. At the same time, according to experts, the flow of water from the lake could not be the main cause of such a powerful tsunami.

Hokkaido. 1993

On July 12, 1993, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 was recorded on the west coast of Hokkaido and its neighboring island Okushiri. A few minutes after this, a giant wave hit the southwestern coast of the islands. The disaster destroyed 540 buildings and killed about 250 people.

The small island of Okushiri, located south of Hokkaido, was among the areas that suffered the most damage from the tsunami. He found himself in the path of the highest waves, which reached 31 meters in height. Trees that fell in the path of the tsunami were uprooted and completely destroyed, houses were destroyed to the ground.

The Japanese authorities quickly responded to the tsunami, and the Japanese were warned of the threat. However, all residents of Okushiri Island could not be evacuated. The giant wave reached its shores too quickly. The protective breakwaters did not save us either; they were designed for waves of no more than 20 meters. About 250 people became victims of the disaster, of which 147 lived on Okushiri.

Papua New Guinea. 1998

On July 17, 1998, a devastating earthquake created a 15-meter tsunami on the northwestern coast of Papua New Guinea. More than 2,000 people became victims of the disaster, thousands of local residents were left homeless.

The tsunami occurred in one of the most remote and isolated parts of the coast of New Guinea. It was caused by a powerful underwater landslide triggered by an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale.

Two tremors were recorded at the bottom of the sea with an interval of half an hour. Even in the capital Rabaul, 1,100 kilometers from the epicenter of the disaster, sea levels rose by more than five centimeters. Although a tsunami is not uncommon for residents of this region, according to eyewitnesses, it has never reached such proportions.

Indian Ocean. 2004

On December 26, 2004 at 07:58 local time, a magnitude 9.3 earthquake occurred in the Indian Ocean. Following this, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, southern India, Thailand and 14 other countries were hit by a tsunami. The wave destroyed everything in its path. Up to 300 thousand people became victims of the disaster.

The epicenter of the tremors was in the Indian Ocean, north of the Indonesian island of Simeulue. The tsunami that followed the earthquake was the deadliest in modern history. Waves up to 30 meters high reached the shores of the nearest countries within 15 minutes; the tsunami reached the most remote corners of the Indian Ocean seven hours later. Many states were not prepared for such a disaster - most coastal zones were taken by surprise. People went to the coast to collect fish that suddenly appeared on land, or to admire an unusual natural phenomenon - this was the last thing they saw.

The disaster killed hundreds of thousands of people. The exact number of deaths has not yet been established - it ranges from 235 thousand people to 300 thousand, tens of thousands are missing, more than a million people were left without homes. Thousands of tourists from different parts of the world who decided to celebrate the Christmas and New Year holidays in the Indian Ocean never returned home.

Java. 2006

On July 17, 2006, a tsunami wave hit the southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java. About 650 people became victims of the disaster, and about 120 more people went missing.

The tsunami was caused by an earthquake, the epicenter of which was in the Indian Ocean at a distance of 220 kilometers south of the resort town of Pangandaran in West Java province. Its source lay at a depth of 33 kilometers. On an approximately 40-kilometer stretch of the coast of Java from Pangandaran to the city of Cilacap, the disaster destroyed thousands of houses and cut off telephone communications. The disaster zone was rocked by new tremors for several hours. This made it much more difficult to find the victims.

The wave arrived on the island in the evening, when many tourists and local residents were swimming in the ocean, only a few of them managed to return to the shore in time. The disaster left over 47 thousand people homeless. According to various estimates, from 600 to 650 people died from the tsunami, 120 were missing. 1,800 coastal residents were injured.

Chile. 2010

On February 27, 2010, an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 occurred in Chile. 20 minutes after the earthquake, a two-meter sea wave hit the coast. Five people died directly from the tsunami. But the earthquake killed 800 people, 1,200 people went missing, and about two million Chileans were left homeless.

The tsunami hit 11 Chilean cities, as well as the coasts of New Zealand, Japan, Australia and Russia. The highest waves in Russia - 90 centimeters - were recorded in Kamchatka. The amount of damage from the natural disaster in Chile, according to various estimates, ranged from 15 to 30 billion dollars.

Japan. 2011

An earthquake off the east coast of Honshu in Japan with a magnitude of 9.0 to 9.1 occurred on March 11, 2011 at 14:46 local time. It caused a powerful tsunami that caused massive destruction in the northern islands of the Japanese archipelago. The official death toll from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan's 12 prefectures is 15,870, with 2,846 missing.

The natural disaster occurred in the western Pacific Ocean, 130 kilometers east of the city of Sendai on the island of Honshu. The epicenter was 373 kilometers from Tokyo. The main shock of magnitude 9.0 was followed by a series of aftershocks, more than 400 in total. This is the strongest earthquake in the known history of Japan.

The disaster caused a tsunami that spread throughout the Pacific Ocean. Many coastal countries in North and South America were warned and evacuations were carried out.

A tsunami is a giant wave generated by seismic activity and rapidly moving across the surface of the water. These waves have caused a lot of harm to people throughout history, especially for residents of island countries.

More about tsunamis

The greatest geological activity, contributing to the emergence of the strongest waves, is observed in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Over the last thousand years there have been at least a thousand of them, that is, on average one tsunami per year. In other oceans the statistics are much more modest. The vast majority of tsunamis are caused by a sudden drop or rise of the ocean floor. However, not every such event is fraught with a giant wave; there are other factors, for example, the depth of the source.

In addition to destruction and loss of life, waves can cause other harm. In particular, this is erosion and severe salinization of coastal land areas. Usually, the approaching catastrophe is first felt by birds and animals, which may behave unusually during this period. Within a few hours or even days, they try to escape away from the shore, and pets try in every possible way to make their owners understand this. This is due to the electromagnetic field. Animals are much more sensitive to it than humans, although some people experience severe headaches.

The moored ships have no chance of salvation

Having noticed the approaching tsunami, you need to take documents with you, gather children and other helpless relatives and go away from the dangerous place, trying to avoid bodies of water - rivers, canals, reservoirs, as well as fragile buildings like bridges or towers. What was the biggest tsunami in the world? Let us list the most famous cases.

July 1958, Alaska

On a summer day, a terrible natural disaster occurred in Lituya Bay. The bay protrudes into the land for about 11 kilometers, and, according to geologists, giant waves several hundred meters high have arisen here at least four times over the last hundred years. And in 1958, a powerful earthquake occurred in the northern part of the bay, from which houses collapsed, the coast collapsed, and many cracks formed. At the same time, a landslide that came down from the mountain swept across the bay and caused a wave of unprecedented height - 524 meters, which moved at a speed of 160 km/h.

The first to be affected were the people in the ships anchored in the bay. According to the stories, at first they were thrown out of their beds by a strong push. Having run out onto the deck, they could not immediately believe their eyes: the sea reared up, and even a powerful glacier, previously located far to the north, was carried along the sea and collapsed the bays into the water. It was like a nightmare. The water completely engulfed Cenotaph Island, spread over its highest point and, with its entire mass, crashed into the bay, causing another impressive wave. On the mountain slopes to the north, the largest tsunami in history tore away forests up to 600 meters in height.

The tsunami easily swept over the entire sandbank and tore off the forest cover from the nearby mountain slope

One of the longboats was picked up by the wave and thrown over the shallows into the ocean waters. The fishermen could see the trees below them. The ship crashed against rocks and trees, but the fishermen managed to survive and were later rescued. Another ship, by luck, remained in place, withstanding the tsunami, but the third sank; people from it are considered missing. Half an hour later, the surface of the water was completely calm, only strewn with uprooted trees, slowly floating towards the exit from the bay.

December 2004, Indian Ocean

On December 26, in the early morning, a powerful earthquake occurred near the island of Sumatra, part of Indonesia. Its power reached nine points. At the same time, a strong displacement of two tectonic plates occurred. In just an hour, 1,200 kilometers of rock moved fifteen meters, and with them the small islands located in the area. It was in connection with this displacement that the tsunami arose. Devastating consequences awaited the popular Thai resort of Phuket, although its residents and vacationers practically did not feel the initial tremors or did not pay attention to them.

What happened next was a complete surprise for the defenseless city. Warnings about the danger had not yet come from Indonesia, so people found themselves face to face with a huge tsunami completely unprepared. Everyone was minding their own business, when suddenly there was a sharp and strong low tide, leaving behind a lot of shells and other seafood. Residents were delighted with this catch, and tourists were delighted with the free souvenirs.

But very soon waves 30 meters high rolled towards the shore, sweeping away everything in their path. People desperately tried to escape, but the tsunami instantly swallowed many of them. Light bungalows are definitely lighter than houses of cards. Having retreated, the water left behind hundreds of human bodies and debris of buildings.

Almost 230,000 people became victims of the terrible disaster

On March 11, northeastern Japan was hit by a powerful earthquake measuring 9.0. According to scientists, an earthquake of this magnitude occurs once every six hundred years. It all started from a point 373 km from Tokyo and at a depth of 24,000 meters. The result of the shake-up was a devastating tsunami that almost completely covered 23 Japanese regions (in total, more than 62 settlements).

Due to a large tsunami, an accident occurred at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, which had no protection from the waves. Water flooded the diesel generators responsible for the cooling system.

Thus, the power units overheated to a critical state, and a reaction began with a powerful release of hydrogen. This resulted in several explosions that destroyed buildings. A lot of radioactive substances were released into the environment.

The number of people killed in the disaster exceeded 20,000, and monetary damages exceeded $215 million. Six months after the incident, radiation continued to be found in food products, not only in the Fukushima area, but also far from it, although the volume of emissions was approximately 5 times less than Chernobyl.

The maximum wave height was 40 meters, which greatly exceeded the preliminary calculations of scientists

The largest earthquake in the history of mankind occurred in Chile on May 22 and resulted in three huge tsunamis. 5,000 people died and several fishing villages were completely wiped out. The waves also reached the coasts of the USA and Japan, from which these countries also suffered high losses. The earthquake occurred the day before, on May 21, and its continuation the next day had a huge force of 9.5 points and lasted at least ten minutes.

The resulting high wave caused irreparable damage - destruction, casualties, trees uprooted. It is not possible to provide exact numbers; all data is very approximate, since it was not possible to collect reliable statistics, except for eyewitness accounts. Some, for example, believe that there were not 5 thousand dead, but 10 thousand. One way or another, the disaster is simply stunning.

From the air, you can see the outlines of farms and villages underwater, stretching 100 kilometers from the former coastline

About ten thousand hectares of coastal lands were flooded, they are under water to this day. It was assumed that this was due to the fact that as a result of the shift of tectonic plates, sea levels rose. But it turned out that, on the contrary, the surface of the earth became lower.

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Philippines on August 16. A huge tsunami covered 700 kilometers of coastal territory, killing 5 thousand people and taking away another 2200. 9.5 thousand were injured, and almost one hundred thousand lost their homes.

The worst natural disaster in the history of the state completely destroyed several cities to the ground

On July 17, the northwestern part of the state was shaken by earthquakes with a magnitude of 7. For this reason, in the most remote part of the coast, a deadly wave rose high, the height of which reached 15 meters. More than 2 thousand people fell under it, and several thousand more were left homeless. Before the terrible tragedy, there was a small and very beautiful lagoon there, but due to the earthquake it was blocked by an underwater landslide. There have never been earthquakes of such magnitude in this area before, although smaller ones occur regularly.

As a result of the 1998 tragedy, a completely new large lagoon was formed

Another major tsunami also occurred in Alaska, just six years after the devastating 1958 wave. It all started with an earthquake measuring more than nine points. Already, 120-150 people have died because of it. The resulting wave, almost 70 meters high, demolished three villages, taking 107 people with it. The wave then swept along the west coast of the United States, destroying several business offices in downtown Anchorage, as well as fish and crab processing plants on Kodiak Island. The ruins looked as if they had been bombed.

Then the tsunami moved to the city of Crescent City. Residents were warned and managed to evacuate, but later, deciding that there was no more danger, they returned to their homes. This was a big mistake. Strong waves flooded the streets of the city, overturning cars and filling all passages with debris from buildings. The events were truly terrible: the pier was practically twisted into a spiral, some houses moved from place to place.

Total damage was estimated at $400 million, and the president issued an executive order to reconstruct Alaska after the tragedy.

Powerful waves, as you can see, can be extremely dangerous. Like other natural disasters, terrible tsunamis often lead to devastating consequences and take lives. The only reassuring thing is that the residents of Russia do not have to worry in this regard; our regions are not too susceptible to such a disaster, except for certain regions, for example, the island of Sakhalin.