In places where the time to

1900 - 2015: TSUNAMIS A NIVEL MUNDIAL

Tsunamis have been ocurred for many centuries but the human being has record of them since 1900, with the firsts Tsunamis in Tonga, Greece and Ecuador and Colombia. Along the years have been many tsunamis as we show in this graphic. Take a look and amaze yourself!

2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

AFTER

BEFORE

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake triggered a series of tsunamis on 26 December 2004, killing approximately 227,898 people (167,540 in Indonesia alone), making it the deadliest tsunami and one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

The earthquake was the third largest earthquake in recorded history. The initial surge was measured at a height of approximately 33 meters, making it the largest earthquake-generated tsunami in recorded history. The tsunami killed people from the immediate vicinity of the quake in Indonesia, Thailand, and the north-west coast of Malaysia, to thousands of kilometres away in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and as far away as Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

In light of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, UNESCO and other world bodies have called for an international tsunami monitoring system.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by an earthquake that had the equivalent energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 230,000. Here are the important facts about the natural calamity.

The magnitude of the earthquake had been estimated at 9.1 on the Richter Scale. This was one of the highest ratings the Richter Scale had ever shown in recent history.

The earthquake hit Earth's surface at around 160 kilometres west from northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

The two tectonic plates under the Indian Ocean, the Indian Plate and the Burma Plate, collided at the Sunda Trench creating the highest magnitude earthquake in 40 years, which triggered the tsunami.

Indonesia, a country that lies between the Pacific Ring of Fire, was affected the worst. Around 167,000 people were estimated to be dead while more than 500,000

houses were washed away.

The Indian Ocean tsunami waves travelled more than 5,000 kilometres to the East coast of Africa and still arrived with sufficient force to kill people and destroy property.

The tsunami not only took a lof of l i v e s , i t a l s o d a m a g e d t h e environment along the Indian Ocean belt.

In the Maldives, 16 to 17 coral reef were left completely without fresh water as salt water polluted the area, which could be rendered uninhabitable for decades.

“This trans-Indian Ocean tsunami is an example of a teletsunami, which travels vast distances across the open ocean, and an ocean-wide tsunami. It became known as the "Boxing Day Tsunami" because it struck on Boxing Day (26 December)”.

Unlike in the Pacific Ocean, there was no organized alert service covering the Indian Ocean. This was in part due to the absence of major tsunami events since 1883

2009: Saoa. A Tsunami of Deadly Proportions

On September 29, 2009 a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck midway between Samoa and American Samoa, a U.S. territory. The earthquake generated tsunami waves of up to 22 meters that engulfed the shores, killing at least 192 people; 149 in Samoa, 34 in American Samoa, and 9 in Niuatoputapu, Tonga.

The devastation extended beyond human casualties with houses destroyed, cars swept out to sea and some villages being virtually annihilated. With over $200 million dollars in damages, the islands were ravaged both physically and economically.

With over 30 deaths in the U.S. territory of American Samoa, the 2009 event caused the largest number of deaths in America due to a tsunami in the 21st Century.

The earthquake was felt in American Samoa for up to 3 minutes, giving emergency responders, local government officials, and the public time to respond to natural warning signs because they understood the threat.

Thanks to education and outreach efforts held over the summer and fall of 2009, many organizations and individuals knew the signs of an impending tsunami and had developed tsunami evacuation plans.

Similar to American Samoa, knowledge of the threat and recognition of a tsunami’s natural warning signs saved many lives in Samoa.

The deadly 2009 tsunami was triggered by at least two separate earthquakes occurring within 2–3 minutes of each other near the Tonga Trench, one of the most seismically active areas in the world. This is an extremely rare event, known as a “doublet.”

Since the 2009 tsunami, Samoa has taken many preparedness measures:

Established a 24/7 National Earthquake and Tsunami Warning Center and built an Emergency Operations Center to support disasters

Upgraded its warning dissemination systems to include island-wide sirens and SMS to essential village and national representatives, churches, schools, NGOs, and the private sector.

Created community-driven evacuation maps and

INTERVIEW TO WALTER DUDLEY, EXPERT IN TSUNAMIS

The Marine Center at the University of Hawaii at Hilo is one of the world’s leading sites for tsunami research. Hilo area suffered great losses in 1946 and again in 1960 when it was inundated by tsunamis generated by ocean-floor earthquakes thousands of kilometers away. The deaths and damage caused by the 1946 disaster prompted scientists to develop an elaborate regional warning system, which has been credited with saving many lives. Walter Dudley is a professor of oceanography and director of the Marine Center. He is also the author of Tsunami!, a book about tidal waves. We have interviewed him:

WWWE: How can you monitor a tsunami?

Walter Dudley: That’s an area that’s already in very good shape. If you declare tsunami warnings every time there was an earthquake, you’d have system that very quickly would be ignored by the public because, fortunately, most earthquakes don’t generate tsunamis. So it´s really important to confirm that waves have actually been generated. The way the system works in the Pacific is there are really two parts. There are tide gauges, which sit in harbors. And those are not really great at accurately measuring the tsunami potential, but they would certainly show if something unusual was going on. But the newest part of the system are sea-floor gauges. And there are now gauges off the Aleutian Islands down the west coast, Central America, South America, and the Japanese have some of their own. And they sit on the ocean floor in very deep water and measure the actual

tsunami waves going over head. And they transmit that information to a buoy on the surface which transmits it to a s a t e l l i t e . S o t h e s e t s u n a m i measurements can be measured at sea and that gives us a much better idea of what’s headed towards some coastal nation.

WWWE: It’s my understanding that an earthquake took place two and a half hours before the tsunami hit. Is that correct?

WD: It depends how far away people are from the earthquake. My understanding is that most of the hardest hit areas were about two hours away.

WWWE: Two hours sounds like a fairly long enough time to be warned.

WD: If there were a warning system in place, they could have gotten out at least

If you’re at the coast and you see the water either, for no apparent reason, seriously withdrawing or coming in, then that’s an indication that s o m e t h i n g u n u s u a l a n d potentially very deadly is about to occur. Also, if you’re at the c o a s t a n d y o u f e e l a n earthquake or were to witness a landslide, those are things that would be an indicator that there is tsunami potential there.

some warning. There’s a second part of this problem and that’s one we still face in the Pacific. And that is public understanding of the tsunami threat. Most people really don’t understand what the phenomenon is. They have these images from movies that there’s one giant wave and it’s like a surfing wave and it’s not. It’s a series of waves that can last over a period of hours. It’s more like a coastal flood. There’s no weather indication, it doesn’t start raining, or have hurricane winds or

anything like that. It can be a beautiful, sunny day at the beach. People need to understand how dangerous the threat is, they need to understand what the warnings mean and they need to recognize the natural signs of a tsunami. Because the areas that are half an hour or an hour away may never have a chance for adequate warning. But if people along the coast recognize initial signs from nature, they might have a chance to save their lives.

WWWE:: What are some of the signs that the ordinary person could recognize? WD: If you’re at the coast and you see the water either, for no apparent reason, seriously withdrawing or coming in, then that’s an indication that s o m e t h i n g u n u s u a l a n d potentially very deadly is about

to occur. Also, if you’re at the coast and you feel an earthquake or were to witness a landslide, those are things that would be an indicator that there is tsunami potential there.

WWWE:: What is your region

doing as far as outreach to help victims of the current tsunami?

WD: The state of Hawaii has been very active in terms of tsunami prevention and education. I know t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l T s u n a m i Information Center [in Honolulu] works regularly with different nations. Looking at the past, after the 1960 tsunami, there were a lot of nations that were struck by that tsunami who weren’t members of the warning system who soon joined up. And I expect that will be the case now. That nations that previously had no real tsunami threat, in spite of the fact that t h e r e h a d b e e n h i s t o r i c a l information that those regions had been hit by tsunamis, it hadn’t been in recent years, say a half a century. So now I think they will feel the urgency of the situation and become members of the warning system and that will indeed help in the future.

TSUNAMI CLASSIFICATION

For practical purposes, to take preventive measures against a tsunami warning, tsunamis of seismic origin are classified into local, regional and distant or transoceanic.

Local tsunamis: Inundation is confined along the coast in the earthquake zone and at distances of 100 km near the earthquake zone.

Regional Tsunamis: They are capable of causing destruction at distances of 1,000 km from the generating region within 2 to 3 hours of their origin.

Faraway Tsunamis: Faraway or transoceanic tsunamis are those that originate in the western margin of the Pacific Ocean and take between 8 and 12 hours to reach our coasts. Tsunamis of distant origin for Mexico can cause considerable damage when the earthquake that originates them is of great magnitude (M 9 to 9.5).

HOW TO DETECT A TSUNAMI

Tsunamis are detected by open-ocean buoys and coastal tide gauges, which report information to stations within the region. Tide stations measure minute changes in sea level, and seismograph stations record earthquake activity.

A tsunami watch goes into effect if a center detects an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 or higher. Civil defense agencies are then notified, and data from tidal gauge stations are closely monitored. If a threatening tsunami passes through and sets off the gauge stations, a tsunami warning issues to all potentially affected areas. Evacuation procedures in these areas are then implemented.

The Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) uses unique pressure recorders that sit on the ocean bottom. These recorders are used to detect slight changes in the overlying water pressure. The DART system can detect a tsunami as small as a centimeter high above the sea level.

Tsunami Warning Safety Measures

1.- Stay away from low-lying and more dangerous coastal areas such as beaches.

Not all earthquakes generate tsunamis, if you receive a tsunami warning or feel a strong earthquake that makes it difficult for you to stand up, the earthquake itself is the warning: stay away from beaches and low lying coastal areas.

2.- Try to stay away from dangerous areas while the warning lasts.

Stay away from rivers or streams. If you are in low areas such as river deltas or sand bars and do not have time to reach a safe place on the hill, find a building and climb to the highest floor.

3. Be careful of changes in sea level.

If the sea level rises or falls suddenly and the seabed is exposed, this is the natural sign of an impending tsunami. Do not go to explore the seabed, move away from the beach immediately.

4.-Never go to the beach to observe a tsunami.

You will not be able to escape and it may be the last thing you see. In a few minutes the tsunami begins to flood with great speed, moving inland faster than a person can run. Do not use your car, leave on foot, there may be roads blocked by traffic congestion.

On December 26, 2004, a tourist observed the retreat of the sea before the tsunami waves returned within minutes to flood the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

5.- In the open sea, far from the coast, the tsunami waves are not destructive to boats.

If you are sailing in a boat and feel a strong earthquake or receive a tsunami warning, do not return to port. Although tsunami waves sometimes pose no danger of flooding, they do generate very strong currents at the entrance to harbors and boats inside the harbor

collide with each other. Boats swept away by the Japanese tsunami.

6.- Watch for news on radio and television during a tsunami warning.

These indications can save your life. Experience indicates that the victims of tsunamis have mostly been people who ignored tsunami warnings.

7. Avoid panic in the event of an evacuation and cooperate with authorities regarding the directions they provide for escape to safety.

8. In places where the time to evacuate to higher ground is not sufficient, you should take refuge in tall buildings, making sure that doors and windows are open for the free circulation of water and that the structure is not affected.

Interview to María Belón, survivor from 2004’s tsunami

We have intervied to Maria Belón, a survivor of the gigantic tsunami from 2004.

What this woman has overcome would not fit into even 100 magazines. Her story is so big that one day J. Bayona decided to turn it into a film, one of the most successful films in spanish cinema. María Belón was lucky enough to be able to tell about it. This is her story.

WWTW: Well, first of all, we find it incredible to have you here after knowing your story through the media and having reflected it in that movie "The Impossible". How would you tell your story?

María Belon: Well, I have an impressive film about my story, made with an absolute truthfulness, beauty and honesty. But there is more behind those scenes, because I have in mind how each detail was, what I do everyday is to remind myself the learning that took place in each of those scenes, those moments and the gift that the tsunami gave me.

WWTW: I´ve heard in one of your interviews that you say the tsunami was a gift for you, right?

MB: A gift.

WWTW: Sounds weird.

MB: It may sounds weird and I didn't understand it before either. The experience was very painful, especially for the losses that occurred. It was very hard but in our case if you see the movie, nothing happened to us, we were very lucky. A situation like this shake you up, put you back in your life, really without excuses and that is a gift. If you take it like that.

WWTW:Maria, what happened to you that day during the catastrophe, what do you remember about that day?

MB: What I remember is a lot of confusion, a lot of anguish, a lot of pain. Now what I have left are scars, scars that remind me that this has already happened and what It remains is life.

WWTW: What was the worst moment you had to go through?

MB: The worst moment was when I got out of the water, when I got out and said shit, I'm alive, I'm alone. At that moment, besides being surrounded by corpses, I knew that my family was dead but that lasted seconds until I saw Lucas’ head, my son, I thought it was a mirage but no, it was real.

WWTW: What was it like when you met your family?

It was exactly like you see in the movie, it was a miracle.

WWTW:How do you overcome a trauma like that?

I don't know what the word "overcome" is, it's a word they always say in a hundred thousand interviews, it makes me very nervous. What is to overcome? I have no idea what it is to overcome. If overcoming is forgetting, I don't want to overcome, if overcoming is being able to smile again, then of course I want to overcome.