The coastal zones of Sri Lanka were destroyed by a horrible tsunami on 26 December 2004. Most people of Sri Lanka did not experience this natural disaster, except flooding, landslides and cyclones. The effect of tsunami had a large scale on Sri Lanka’s coastal areas, around 70 per cent of total 1400 km long of coastal zones was affected (Ratnasooriya et al., 2007). The effect of tsunami has enormous impacts on human, economy, and environmental of Sri Lanka. Impact on human is one of the tsunami’ s effects. According to MoFP (2006 cited in Ratnasooriya et al. 2007, p.22) the effect of tsunami affected over millions of people, nearly 40,000 people died, 20,000 people were injured, 5000 missing and 500,000 were migrated. On top of that, it resulted in almost 200 orphan children and nearly 200,000 persons lost their livelihoods. Another essential impact of the tsunami’s effects is economy. Based on ADB (2005 cited in Ratnasooriya et al. 2007, p.22) the effect of tsunami resulted in economy lost around 4.5 per cent of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its impact caused a reduction of GDP growth by 1 per cent in 2005. The overall damage caused by the tsunami was estimated approximately US.D 900 million with a large proportion of housing, tourist, fisheries and transport sectors. Other important impact of the tsunami’ effects is environment. The seawater went to the land caused significant damage to environment. It caused enormous soil erosion, destroyed vegetation of the
Infrastructure needed for transport was severely damaged. Over 2000 miles of roads were swept away. This made it more difficult to access and support communities affected by the tsunami.
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes underneath the ocean, which can results in gigantic waves that cause devastation and change the Earth’s surface by causing radiation and causing underwater landslides. In the article “Is Santa Catalina Island Sinking or Rising?” it describes how an effect of tsunamis. It states, “A tsunami could have struck the coast from Catalina when the underwater landslide occured” (Los Angeles Times 2). Therefore, tsunamis can strike coasts and can create landslides underwater, changing the ocean floor by creating caves and canyons. Also, tsunamis can wear away beaches. When giant waves crash into coasts of masses of land, they can wear away the coast. Finally, tsunamis can cause radiation. In the article “Dangerous Tsunami Threat off U.S. West Coast,” it explains, “It [the tsunami] also damaged a nuclear power plant, causing a meltdown and spreading dangerous radiation in the area” (Los Angeles Times). Consequently, tsunamis can destroy and interfere with human made buildings which may contain toxic gases which may be released into the air and cause damage the environment. Incidentally, damaging the environment can lead to killing plant and animal life, and the Earth in that area could potentially become barren and
Natural disasters are a huge challenge for the planet because of the adverse effects that are associated with them. One of the major earthquakes to have shaken the earth is the Great Sendai Earthquake or Great Tōhoku Earthquake that occurred in 2011. The event started when a powerful earthquake hit the northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, and resulted in a widespread damage on land. A series of massive tsunamis later devastated many parts of the coastal regions of the country with the worst affected being the Tohoku region. The tsunami further resulted in a major nuclear accident that damaged distant regions on a power station located along the coast. The economic effects of the tsunami qualify it as one of the major natural disasters because it affected Japan’s economic stability as the country ended up resorting to importing as an alternative to cover the loss.
Throughout this unit, the Science in Practice class has been learning about natural disasters and the impact it has on humans and environment. The natural disaster that will be discussed in this report is the Boxing Day Tsunami, which occurred on the 26th of December, 2004. The tsunami took place in the Indian Ocean. Due to, two tectonics plates, the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate colliding, causing an underwater earthquake. Due to this awful disaster, people were killed, injured, diagnosed with diseases, homes and businesses were destroyed, the environment damaged.
Tsunamis occur when an earthquake happens in the ocean and the energy goes to the water creating huge waves. Tsunamis are very dangerous they can be so strong that they wash away the city, harm thousands, and cause hundreds of thousands to billions of dollars in damage. “A giant tsunami along the West Coast would wash away coastal towns, destroy U.S. Highway 101 and cause $70 billion in damage. More than 100 bridges would be lost, power lines toppled and coastal towns isolated. Residents would have as few as 15 minutes’ notice to flee to higher ground, and as many as 10,000 would die” (Dangerous tsunami threat off U.S. West Coast). This shows what kind of damage this geo-process can
The effect of the disaster on the community was massive as it dramatically affected the tourism and fishing, restaurants and beaches, for the people who have livelihood depend on tourism and fishing, it led to many job losses.
Firstly, the social impacts. There is no doubt that the 2010 Chile earthquake had a huge impact upon the social life of Chile. The Chilean National Emergency office – initially responsible for documenting the casualties – estimated that more than 800 people had died. However, as the Interior Ministry reviewed the data in the following weeks, official tallies ultimately attributed more than 500 deaths to the disaster. 150 of those casualties were caused by the tsunami.
The tsunami waves reached heights up to 128 feet at Miyako city and traveled inland as far as six miles. A tsunami is a series of large sea waves caused by a large displacement of water. The tsunami flooded an estimated area of approximately 217 square miles in Japan. The massive waves destroyed large three-story buildings where many people seeked for safety. Within hours of the first tsunami hit Hawaii and set off multiple warning to Canada, Alaska, South America, the United States, the Oregon coast, and the Pacific.
All along the coast of Central America the tsunami was observed. (February 4, 1965, Alaska Earthquake, Rat Islands, Magnitude 8.7) This earthquake was recorded at a magnitude 8.7 and caused a big tsunami of over 10 m on Shemya Island. It barely caused any damage, though. Just two months after the initial shock, an aftershock earthquake at a magnitude of 7.6 hit the same area. (March 28, 2005, Sumatra Earthquake aka Nias Earthquake) Just off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, was a devastating earthquake that killed 1,300 people. A majority of the devastation occurred on the island of Nias. The massive earthquake sparked a panic around countries along the Indian Ocean because there was a massive tsunami just three months earlier in December. ( August 15, 1950, Assam, Tibet Earthquake, Magnitude 8.6) There were at least 780 people who died in this 8.6 magnitude earthquake. Many buildings completely collapsed in areas of Eastern Tibet. Landslides and ground cracks/fractures ended up washing away and entire village. The village of Yedong collapsed into the Yarlung Zangbo River and literally washed
This generated one of the deadliest tsunamis known to mankind, killing over 230,000 people and leaving over two million people displaced. The epicenter of the earthquake was located in the Indian Ocean, right off the west coast of Sumatra. The tectonic plates beneath the ocean floor had been colliding and building up pressure for hundreds of years, until this day when subduction occurred between the Indian and the Burma plates. The process of subduction displaced billions of tons of water, creating waves that traveled towards the shorelines at hundreds of miles per hour and as high as sixty to one hundred feet. There was absolutely no warning for the people of Southeast Asia, as the tsunami progressed quite rapidly. (National Geographic,
The most widespread impact of the earthquake and the resulting tsunami to was the loss of housing. It is estimated that “three million people were affected by the quake – nearly one-third of the country’s total population.” (Pallardy, 2016). This includes the originally estimated 222,570 people who died in the initial crisis and the more than one million individuals who were left homeless. This massive destruction of housing was due to
Know as the second worst tsunami in the world’s history, the Boxing day tsunami took place on December 26, 2004. The tsunami destroyed over 12 different countries and islands, including Sumatra, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and many more countries located by the Indian ocean(Malcolm Moore and Meabh Ritchie). It had continued trekking counties in the Indian Ocean for over two days and left all of which were hit devastated.
From the case study above we can see that human influences were the main cause in the severity of the impact, but that’s not always the case, physical factors are just as important. This can be seen in the great Sumatra- Andaman earthquake which took place on the 26th of December 2004 and registered a 9.1 magnitude, one of the third biggest recorded quakes. The subduction of the Indo-Australian plate under the Burma plate triggered the tsunami responsible for the greatest loss of life in a tectonic event. A 15-20m slip occurred along 1600km of fault line in two phases over a period of around 3-4 minutes, the longest rupture ever recorded in an earthquake. The focus was located just 30km below sea level, which resulted in serval billion tonnes of water being displaced across
The word tsunami comes from a Japanese word meaning “Long harbor waives”. Tsunami is much known and very common in Japan because thousands of Japanese have been killed and some suffered in recent centuries. Tsunami waves generally speaking cause a lot of damages such as, killing people, destroying building, and costing million of dollars. Moreover, a tsunami is a series of great sea waves caused by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that is located on epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, is actually one of the worst disasters in the history of Indian Ocean that generated by the most powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake. An aggressive
In 2004, a tsunami took place in the Indian Ocean, originated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Reports from the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) “The tsunami caused more casualties than any other in recorded history and was recorded nearly world-wide on tide gauges in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean”. “The USGS estimates that the sudden movement