TSUNAMI - Part 2

 

History and Cause

As early as 426 B.C. the Greek historian Thucydides inquired in his book History of the Peloponnesian War about the causes of tsunami, and was the first to argue that ocean earthquakes must be the cause.

"The cause of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake. At the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen."

The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (Res Gestae 26.10.15-19) described the typical sequence of a tsunami, including an incipient earthquake, the sudden retreat of the sea and a following gigantic wave, after the 365 A.D. tsunami devastated Alexandria.

While Japan may have the longest recorded history of tsunamis, the sheer destruction caused by the 2004 earthquake and tsunami event mark it as the most devastating of its kind in modern times, killing around 230,000 people. The Sumatran region is not unused to tsunamis either, with earthquakes of varying magnitudes regularly occurring off the coast of the island.

Somehow, countries far away from sea will not suffer tsunami at all. Countries like Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are far away from sea. In Europe, countries like Switzerland, Poland, Germany and some of ex Soviet states like Belarus, Chechnya, Ukraine or Georgia are so far away from sea. If the country like Switzerland is hit by a tsunami, then perhaps the whole Europe and some other major part of this World will be under the sea.

That will mark as the end of this world.