You may have heard the little doomsday nomenclature used for tsunamis. But some are not small at all… The Lituya Bay Tsunami is one of them!
You may be hearing about this disaster for the first time. It would not be wrong to call it a disaster that was avoided because very few people lived in the region, because NASA says that even more than 60 years after the disaster, the destruction can still be seen from space.
What is a tsunami and how does it occur?
Tsunami is a Japanese word meaning “harbour wave”. No wonder the word is Japanese!
A tsunami is a long oscillating giant sea wave that occurs due to the energy passing into the sea as a result of tectonic events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and subsidence and shifts on the ground that occur at the bottom of the ocean or seas.
See the megatsunami!
As the name suggests, tsunamis with larger waves are called megatsunamis. But wavelengths are not the only difference.
Normal tsunamis are caused by the movement of the seafloor, and in the open sea the wave height is lower. Megatsunamis, on the other hand, are caused by other events such as large landslides and meteorites falling into the sea.
Large landslides and meteorites falling into the sea cause rapid displacement of large volumes of water. This is perfect for creating megatsunamis.
Biggest tsunami ever seen: Lituya Bay Tsunami
On the night of July 9, 1958, at 22.15, 90 million tons of rock suddenly fell into the bay due to the landslide that occurred after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that occurred in Alaska’s Lituya Bay.
It will be much easier for us to perceive the size if we say that 90 million tons is equal to 8 million dump truck loads.
The Lituya Bay Tsunami is a complete disaster!
The biggest tsunami in the history of the world occurred when so many rocks suddenly fell into the gulf waters. The waves, which reached 524 meters in length, uprooted the trees on the coastline and caused a great disaster.
As can be seen in a YouTube video about the size of the tsunamis, the wavelength of the Lituya Bay Tsunami was so large that it could have contained 8 Bosphorus Bridges (height above the water) or 13 Galata Towers lined up on top of each other.
It is fortunate that it took place in an area with few people.
As a result, only 5 people died. While the Lituya Bay Tsunami is the largest tsunami, it is not the deadliest.
What those who witnessed the tsunami told me that it was a surreal image. However, a fisherman’s account reveals the magnitude of the tsunami.
The fisherman describes how the waves threw him to the top of a tree and stayed there. It’s creepy to even be able to experience something like this…
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