00:00Why did one major earthquake in Russia trigger alerts across the entire Pacific?
00:04Well, when the ocean floor shakes, it pushes up an enormous volume of water.
00:08That energy spreads out as a tsunami, traveling in all directions, sometimes faster than a jet.
00:13A tsunami can reach thousands of miles away.
00:16That's why even distant places go on high alert.
00:19And here's something you might not know.
00:21It's not just earthquakes.
00:23Volcanoes, submarine landslides, even meteorites can trigger tsunamis.
00:27Ever heard of Krakatoa?
00:28In 1883, a volcano shattered the Pacific island.
00:32The explosion was followed by a tsunami that killed around 30,000 people.
00:36Fast forward to 2004.
00:38A 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed over 220,000 people across 11 countries.
00:47But why do we call it a tsunami?
00:49The word comes from Japanese for harbor and wave.
00:52And despite the nickname tidal wave, tsunamis have nothing to do with tides.
00:56They're caused by powerful shifts in the ocean floor.
00:59And here's the scary part.
01:01In the open ocean, tsunami waves are almost invisible.
01:05But as they approach land, the ocean floor squeezes them, making the waves rise dramatically.
01:10Have you ever seen the water suddenly retreat from the shore?
01:13That's one of the earliest warning signs.
01:16And what comes next?
01:17The wall of water we call a tsunami.
01:19They might be rare, but when tsunamis strike, the devastation is unimaginable.
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