HCNN - The Biggest Event This Year Is Coming…

The Biggest Event This Year Is Coming…
Turkey and Syria are still struggling to recover from the earthquake swarm that started on February the 6th this year. The Turkish province of Gaziantep was shaken by a tremor reaching a magnitude as high as 7.8. But it could have been even worse if the events in Turkey had been unfolding as they were in Japan in March of 2011, when a major earthquake was followed by a tsunami. Twelve years ago, an earthquake of a colossal 9.1 magnitude triggered a titanic wave in the Pacific Ocean. The tsunami took more than 18,000 lives and cost Japan $220 billion. Witnesses' videos of the tragedy are outright horrifying. Moreover, geophysicists are expecting even more powerful tsunamis to strike in the nearest future. Right now, we should already prepare for the worst-case disaster scenarios. So today, you'll find out how to prevent a megatsunami. Some of you might not consider the possibility of a tsunami hitting your home. But to assess all the risks, let's find out where and, most importantly, why the killer waves usually form. To start with, open a map of tectonic plates. Earth's crust is made up of platforms that sort of prop up continents and the seabed. They move in relation to one another with a speed of up to several centimeters per year, and sometimes this movement induces underground tremors. They occur in fault zones, where two plates either move apart or move towards each other, or slide sideways relative to each other. The statistics over the last 100 years show that 80% of tsunamis were caused by nothing else than earthquakes. In Japan's case, it was the Oceanic Pacific Plate that moved under the Okhotsk Plate. As for Turkey, the country is located in one of the most active seismic zones in the world. The region where this year's earthquake occurred is at the intersection of as many as three tectonic plates, Anatolian, Arabian, and African. The Arabian Plate is moving to the north, pushing the Anatolian Plate, on which the larger part of Turkey is located, to the west. After the earthquake in the Turkish city of Iskenderun, the sea level even started to rise. Numerous videos show water covering the streets, and while it's far from a major flood, it still looks very ominous. And if the tremor magnitude had been even higher that day, Turkey could have ended up repeating not only the scenario that shook Japan in 2011, but also the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster. This 9.3 magnitude earthquake is one of the three most severe earthquakes ever observed, and the tsunami that followed it is the deadliest in the history of humankind. In one day, a colossal section along the Indian and Australian plates just ruptured. Instead of one strong shock, the earthquake lasted a whole ten minutes. Because of this, the wave energy of the triggered tsunami was twice the total energy of all explosive substances used in World War II combined, including the two nuclear bombs. The maximum height of the wave on that day was recorded at 30 meters. This is almost 18 times higher than an average human. Because the disaster happened on December 26th, it affected not only those who lived on the coast of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, southern India, and Thailand. Many of its victims were multiple tourists who went to spend their Christmas holidays in warmer countries. Watching videos from that day, you can hear people praying for salvation. This mega tsunami took the lives of around 300,000 people. The exact death toll is still unknown, though many victims were washed away into the ocean. So if you see your city on the tectonic plate map marked with red dots, which indicate the possibility of an earthquake, beware. The risk of a mega tsunami is extremely high.