Tsunami.....The Killer Wave

As most of u know that South-East ASia was hit by the tsunamis (killer waves) in the early hrs of 26th....people had just finished their Christmas celebrations....Kids were on the beach and the streets playing cricket etc....the fishermen were getting to work....women were out mending the fishing nets and helping the men go out into the see....hundreds were on the beach for their early morning walk and jog.....people in the tourist places were out to beat the crowds to the beaches....the businesses on the beach were abt to begin in full swing.....but all these people were unaware of the danger that was brewing the depths of the Indian Ocean !!!!!!!!!

Earlier that morning a 9.0 earthquake had hit the shore of the Sumatra Island in Indonesia....taht itself had caused a lot of devastation....people from India will remember the quake that hit Gujarat abt 3 yrs ago....its after effects cans till be seen on the streets of Gujarat whre people are still trying to get over the personal and financial losses that the quake had brought...

This quake in Indonesia seemed to have shocked the world by its magnitude as 9.0 quakes are not commonly seen....the one in California in 1986 was much smaller than this one...so u can imagin the magnitude of destructiion it can cause. Tsunami is a tidal wave that is caused by quakes close to the shore or in the ocean....the quake caused a disturbanc eon the ocean floor which develops into a huge wave that is only 1 meter in the ocean but travels at 500 mi/hr (near to the seep of jet)....it travels very fast in the deep waters and slows down considerably when it approaches the shore...the bottom of the wave is slowed down by the sloping (elevation) of the ocean
floor as it approaches the shore...but the top of the wave keeps traveling at a greater speed and accumulates water so it rises to abt 20m in height as it reached the shore with millions of gallons of water.....when it hits the shore it hits it with such force that it can literally destroy everything in the vicinity.....

example....if a tidal wave of 90ft(~25m) height hits the east coast of Florida...it can travel across Florida....flooding the whole state!!!!!!!!!!!! and drowning most of it

the waves that hit Srilanka were abt 40ft high, those that hit Chennai were 20ft and those that hit indonesia are speculated to be abt 60ft high...so u can imagine the amount of devastation these can cause....

to be continued..........