tsunamis and earthquakes.docx
Post on 03-Apr-2018
217 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
-
7/28/2019 Tsunamis and Earthquakes.docx
1/4
Iesha Clark
Sociology
1/24/12
Tsunamis and Earthquakes
In Sendai northeast of Japan, a quiet, small fishing port called Minamisanriku
was hit by an earthquake at 2:46 p.m. The earthquake was about 80 miles in the Pacific
Ocean with a 280 mile long block of the earths crust that had moved to the east, some
of it even moved 80 feet. It happened along a fault that was buried deep under the
seafloor. A man name Sato had just finished in a meeting talking about tsunami
defenses when he and the people that were with him felt an earthquake occur two days
earlier. Scientist realizes that the earthquake that happened on March11 was the largest
in Japans history.
After five brutal minutes, the ground stopped heaving leaving Minamisanriku
intact. But the sea started to heave and move. Sato and the people that he had a
meeting with decided to run next door to a three story disaster-readiness center to take
cover. A 24 year old broadcasting woman name Miki Endo that was working on the
second floor broadcasted a warning over the towns speakers saying Please head to
higher ground! Sato and most of the people that were left over from the meeting
headed up to the roof of the disaster-readiness center. Sato and the people that were
with him, watched the tsunami pour through the town 18- foot- high wall. They listened
to the tsunami as crushed and sweep everything in its path. Wood frames snapped on
houses and steel girder groaned. Then the water sweep over the disaster- readiness
centers roof top and Miki Endos broadcasting abruptly stopped.
-
7/28/2019 Tsunamis and Earthquakes.docx
2/4
More than 16, 000 people died that day an 4,000 are still missing, most of them
from along hundreds of miles of the coast in the Tohoku region. The tsunami destroyed
several towns and villages a left hundreds of thousands homeless in Tohoku. Because
of the tsunami an earthquake in 1896, between 16,000 and 20,000 people died. In 2004
in the Indian Ocean a deadly tsunami killed nearly 230, 000 people. In the next 30
years, some in Indonesia forecasted that a tsunami will happen. In 1960 when Sato was
eight years old, he survived a big tsunami that killed 41 people in Minamisanriku. It is
said that an tsunami will strike almost anywhere every year, and giant ones will have
arguably changed history. In 1755 an earthquake and tsunami killed tens of thousands
of people in Lisbon.
In 15th century B.C. Thucydides (a Greek historian) was the first person to
document a connection that is between earthquakes and tsunamis. Thucydides quoted
Without an earthquake I do not see how such things could happen. Most tsunamis
including the Tohoku one are mainly caused by seafloor earthquakes are along the
faults called subdivision zones and most of the earthquakes are in the Pacific and
Indian Ocean. A quake started last month off of Japan that began miles below the
seafloor, and then it spread up through the sloping contact that is between the plates to
the Japan Trench seafloor. In 1960 in Minamisanriku 41 people died by a tsunami that
was triggered by a magnitude 9.5 earthquakes that was off of Chile and it was the
largest quake on record.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by the United States has
developed a new tsunami- detecting system that detects a tsunami before it happens
sometimes. The system contains an instrument that is anchored on the seafloor called
-
7/28/2019 Tsunamis and Earthquakes.docx
3/4
the tsunameter, and it measures the pressure that causes change by a passing
tsunami. When a tsunami passes the device will send a signal to the surface buoy,
which will then send the data to a satellite, and then it will broadcast the information to
all of the warning centers around the world. By the year of 2004 only six detectors
where deployed in the Pacific Ocean and there were none in the Indian Ocean. Now
there are 53 detector buoys in the oceans operating in the Pacific Ocean, and 6 out of
27 are planned to be in the Indian Ocean.
The detector system that is run by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) did
not work properly in March. The first crucial estimate while the ground was still shaking
was an earthquake magnitude at 7.9, then later another earthquake started and it was a
magnitude 9; which was 12 times stronger. After the quakes, a tsunami hit that had
started out as a ten foot wave, but when it reached Minamisanriku it was 50 feet.
Seismologist was shocked from of the earthquake an tsunami. The quake that
happened in Indonesia erupted thousand miles of fault, and the Tohoku quake only 280,
but the latter produced a magnitude 9 quake. The last tsunami in Seattle that happened
in Puget Sound was the last one about thousand years ago.
My concept for this article is that a lot of tsunamis and earthquakes happen and a
lot of them are going to still happen. Most all tsunamis happen from under the seafloor
and then spread through the ocean, and make the ocean heave the water back. Then
after that the water surges upward creating a tsunami. From what Ive read a lot of
people have always died from the tsunamis and earthquakes.
-
7/28/2019 Tsunamis and Earthquakes.docx
4/4
APA Works Citation
Folger, T. (2012, February 3). The Calm before the Wave. National Geographic.
top related