In relation to the recent earthquake in Chile I've added below a great animation regarding the tsunami done by NOAA. I was really frustrated watching the news on Saturday with their coverage of the tsunami. Media types (and I'd guess a great deal of their viewers) seem to think of tsunamis as tidal waves, and I think underscored the dangers inherent in a tsunami, especially one started with the amount of force and energy as this one.
Rising sea levels alone (that's a lot of displaced water) are a serious concern, especially in coastal areas without a great deal of shoreline topography and with a great deal of "development". A friend of mine is in Indonesia right now with his girlfriend and staying in a little hut on stilts on the water - the potential for them to get wiped out to sea, stranded in their hut, or something of the sort was relatively high on Saturday. They wound up chartering a boat, leaving the island, and going to another one where they could go "inland" from the coast and stay safer.
In addition to the initial concern related to rising sea level, you also have to consider that while tsunami waves might not look like much in some areas, they can be fairly strong, close together, and have a great deal of suction at the trough of the wave - which is how you get those beautiful backwards flowing waves that we saw up and down the California coast on Sunday. Any strong normal current and/or even a strong wind will cause the same effects, but a lot of people might think "huge wave" when they hear tsunami and see something only a few feet tall and throw caution to the wind.
I was slightly amused, but I suppose more frustrated and a little disgusted with the reaction of the news anchors once the tsunami waves reached Hawaii. I think some of them figured they would be able to report in real time as the islands were destroyed by waves (think Thailand 2004) and when the waves didn't go crashing over the coastal highways and knock over houses they were absolutely crestfallen. That's just ridiculous.
In other, and related news, here is a map that was in the NY Times last week - delineating where shoddy building construction can lead to humanitarian devastation post earthquake. This data was compiled prior to the January 12, 2010 quake in Haiti, but it is interesting to note that Port Au Prince is projected to have a "very strong" intensity quake. Other urban areas with significant urban populations that rank on "very strong" along with PauP: Cairo and Delhi (each with a population between 10 and 20 million people). There are no Chilean or American urban areas on this map - because our building practices tend to be significantly better than most countries in the Middle East or South East Asia.
Just something to think on.
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