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Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of ocean waves that are usually caused by seismic events.
The word tsunami is a Japanese word that means “harbour wave”.
A tsunami is pronounced as “soo-nah-mee”.
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Tsunami written in
Japanese text
“tsu” means harbour and “nami” means wave.
Sometimes tsunami are called “tidal waves”, but this is not correct. Tsunami are not caused by the tides. Although tsunami impact on a coastline can be affected by tide level, tsunami are unrelated to tides.
Tsunami is usually formed by undersea events that create sudden and large disturbances to the ocean. These underwater events can be caused by:
- Earthquakes
- Landslides
- erupting Volcanoes
- Other movements in the Earth’s crust, or from large explosions.
A tsunami could also be caused from events above the ocean floor. These events could include:
- a meteorite crashing into the ocean
- major landslides.