The Catastrophic Impact of Tsunami: Understanding Ocean Wave Surges and Their Destructive Power

Name Institutional Affiliations Date Meaning of a tsunami A tsunami is a catastrophic ocean wave that sends water surges (Bachay et al., 2022). These series of ocean waves build up in heights reaching up to 100 feet on land. Since they are strong water waves, tsunami causes widespread destruction when they crash ashore. Interestingly, these catastrophic ocean waves do not dramatically increase in height out in the ocean's depth. On the contrary, when these oceanic waves travel inland, they build up to higher and higher heights. Such drastic heights happen as the depth of the ocean decreases. According to (Scourse et al., 2018), the speed of ocean waves varies depending on the ocean depth regardless of the distance of the source. These catastrophic ocean waves travel as fast as a jet in deep waters, and the speed lowers when the waves hit shallow waters, implying that the impact of such waves when in deep water is high and thus can cause severe destruction to anything they come in contact with before hitting the shallow waters. Tidal waves are, to some extent, associated with the tsunami, but it is imperative to note that tidal waves are not potentially able to cause giant waves that define a tsunami. For this reason, a tsunami is a catastrophic series of ocean waves that comes in the form of massive waves defining adverse effects on waters and the earth (Scourse et al., 2018). Origin and Development An impulse plays a significant role in the formation of a tsunami. What does this imply? When an earthquake or any other generating impulse occurs, waves propagate a great distance from the ocean surface. These waves are in the form of ever-widening circles, which can move at a speed of 800km in deep waters. The length of a tsunami varies based on the water levels. However, sometimes in deep waters, these wavelengths exceed 500kms with substantially lower heights of about 30 to 60 centimeters. Wave periods also vary from a few minutes to hours but last very long before any crest passes a single point enabling them to be entirely obscured in deep waters by regular wind waves (Scourse et al., 2018). The velocity of these waves reduces with the friction of the rising sea b