The biggest tsunami in the world

A tsunami is one of the most terrible manifestations of nature's wrath. It is generated by an earthquake, after which a huge wave of water rushes towards land and, as a rule, more than one. Thanks to our territorial location, we are not in danger of being washed away into the ocean, because even if underground vibrations occur somewhere, their echoes only reach us. Islands are the first to get in the way of huge waves, and sometimes people’s carelessness, as well as ignorance of banal safety rules, becomes the cause of their death. After all, it happened more than once that people returned to their homes from shelters immediately after the first wave, although there were always two or more of them. We've collected the top 10 largest tsunami waves in the world and combined them into one list.

10. Our list opens with an unpleasant incident in Japan that happened in 2004. Two earthquakes of 6.7 and 7.2 points created large waves, but due to the distance of 120 kilometers, only meter-long effects of vibrations reached the shore. The incident did not cause any deaths, because the coastal residents were almost unharmed, only escaping with fear.

9. Even though the photographs taken by the residents of the Solomon Islands are not photos of the largest tsunami, this did not in the least prevent two-meter waves from completely razing four large settlements to the ground in 2007. According to official data, the disaster claimed the lives of at least 52 people.

8. A magnitude of 8.8 led to significant earth faults in Chile and also caused a tsunami. Three-meter water flows destroyed the city of Compension, and also caused the death of about a hundred people.

7. The underwater terrain near the island of Papua New Guinea became fatal for its inhabitants. Powerful fluctuations with a magnitude of 7.1 did not easily generate waves, underwater they caused a huge landslide, which, when released, caused a large tsunami. Subsequently, it killed more than 2 thousand people.

6. This happened a long time ago, but the residents of the frosty region will remember it forever. In 1957, an earthquake occurred on the islands near Alaska. All recorded readings pointed to a magnitude of 9.1, one of the largest recorded. The waves rose up to 14 meters in height, and only due to the fact that the cold region was sparsely populated, the number of victims was only three hundred people.

5. Five years before the incident in Alaska, almost something similar happened near Kamchatka, but in scale it was still large. The height of the tsunami was 18 meters, which destroyed the city of Severo-Kurilsk, completely turning it into complete ruins. At the moment of its rage, the cataclysm took two thousand lives.

4. One of the few cases when it was possible to find out about the cataclysm in advance and save everyone who might have been hurt. Where was the largest tsunami in the world, which never managed to reach its goal - on the islands of Izu and Miyake. The magnitude of only 6.8 generated waves of about 40 meters on average, but fortunately the authorities managed to quickly evacuate local residents.

3. Thanks to the underground vibrations of 1958, Lituya Bay was visually completely changed. They caused the collapse of a huge part of the mountain slope, which went under water, and this in turn caused the emergence of a water giant measuring 52 meters in height, which met the land at a speed of 150 km/h, radically changing it.

2. Another incident in Alaska happened back in 1964, however, this time in Prince William Sound. Powerful vibrations caused a record 67-meter wave, which killed about one and a half hundred civilians.

1. What is the biggest tsunami in the world? What happened off the coast of Southeast Asia back in 2004. Its power and mercilessness did not easily terrify, the incredible masses of water took the lives of at least 235 thousand people. There were victims in Somalia, Sri Lanka, India, and even Thailand.