WAVE OF TERROR A Pacific island harbor on a sunny day is a water playground playground Families swim and frolic in the shallow depths Surfers paddle out beyond the inlet to find a swelling wave to ride On March 11 2011 a severe earthquake and tsunami destroyed Otsuchi and other areas in northern Japan Suddenly an alarm shrieks from a pier over looking the happy scene Someone with a higher view of the ocean’s expanse expanse has noticed an odd formation on the horizon A solid wall of water appears to have risen above the 4
VOCABULARY In Japanese the word tsunami means harbor wave Tsunamis can cause great destruction when they reach land ocean surface It is as wide as the eye can see It is racing toward the harbor Tsunami Everyone scrambles from the water They run through the streets and up the hillside farther farther inland They must find high ground higher than the massive massive wave can reach Already the ocean surge is crashing through the seaport seaport It takes down buildings swirling rubble before it Can people get to a safe height before before it overtakes them too 5 As a tsunami alert sounds people in Lima Peru rush to safety on higher ground by following a marked route
WHAT ARE TSUNAMIS Tsunamis are massive destructive ocean waves They begin when a powerful event on the ocean floor pushes tons of water to the surface from below From that point they begin to move across the ocean in all directions directions They can spread for thousands of miles These waves slow down but increase increase in size and force as they travel By the time they arrive at a distant seashore An undersea earthquake forces water from below to the surface and creates waves The waves get larger and more powerful as they move 6
COMPARE AND CONTRAST Tsunamis sometimes are called tidal waves but they are not tidal at all Tides are changes in the ocean levels that are noticeable along the coasts They are caused by the pull of gravity on Earth’s oceans from the moon and sun The tides occur regularly every day How are tides similar to tsunamis How are they different they may be as high as a three-story building A tsunami is not just a single wave It consists of a series of waves following following one another The first wave may not be the strongest It may be several several days until the surface surface of the ocean returns to normal A photograph taken from above shows a tsunami’s series of waves moving up the Naka River in Japan 7
