Tsunami and Earthquake in Japan

A huge tsunami generated by the magnitude of 8.9 quake shook Japan’s eastern coast, slaying hundreds of people, according to the Associated Press.

A tsunami is a series of great sea waves caused by an underwater eathquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. A tsunami can be produced by a giant meteor impact with the ocean.

Scientists have found traces of an asteroid-collision event that they say would have created a giant tsunami that swept around the Earth several times, drowning everything. The coastline of the continents was changed terribly and almost all life on land was exterminated.

An earthquake leads to a tsunami if it is of enough force and there is a violent enough movement of the seafloor to cause substantial and sudden displacement of a massive amount of water.

A tsunami is not a single wave but an array of waves, also known as a wave train. The first wave in a tsunami is not necessarily the most damaging. Tsunamis are not tidal waves.

Scientists say that an enormous earthquake of magnitude 9 hit the Pacific Northwest in 1700 and created a tsunami that caused flooding and damage on the Pacific coast of Japan.