The Year the Earth Went Wild TV - Costas Synolakis - The Truth Behind: Atlantis TV - Horizon & Iain Stewart TV - Anne M Mulcahy - Japan's Tsunami: Caught on Camera TV - 1755 The Lisbon Earthquake TV - The Next Mega-Tsunami TV - Bill McGuire - Tsunami: The Day the Wave Struck TV - The Day the Dinosaurs Died TV - Nova: Nuclear Meltdown Disaster TV - In Search of … TV - Unsolved Mysteries TV - The 2000s: The Decade We Saw It All TV -
In 2011 record levels of rainfall flooded nearly every continent. The heart of America was torn apart by tornadoes. And Japan’s coastline was devastated by a horrific tsunami. The Year the Earth Went Wild, Channel 4 2011
March: On 11th March at 2.46p.m. earthquake warnings flashed across Japan ... Tsunami: travelling at over five hundred miles an hour the wave takes just minutes to reach the coast of Japan ... Nuclear radiation ... Four of the reactors were destroyed through overheating. ibid.
We don’t really know scientifically exactly what happened to Santorini ... We think that the volcano basically blew up and the entire Santorini was destroyed. With this collapse of the volcano, a huge tidal wave was triggered. And the tidal wave, the tsunami, travelled all the way to Crete and severely impacted the Minoans. Professor Costas Synolakis, engineer & tsunami specialist, University of Southern California
On the Greek island of Crete most of Minoan civilisation was drowned by a tsunami. The Truth Behind: Atlantis, 2011
Forty million live and work along the east coast of the United States. Yet this entire population unknowingly lives under threat of a sudden catastrophe. Scientists have now found evidence that one day a colossal wave will one day devastate the coast of America ... A mega-tsunami. Horizon: Mega-Tsunami, Wave of Destruction, BBC 2000
Even the biggest earthquakes can only lift the sea floor about ten metres which creates a wave of the same height. That’s about as big as a normal tsunami gets. ibid.
For a mega-tsunami to be created a large amount of rock must be falling fast enough so that when it hits the water it releases a single pulse of energy in the form of a wave. Crucially, the size of the wave will be directly related to the size of the landslide. ibid.
Mega-tsunamis are able to cross whole oceans. ibid.
Mega-tsunamis on the other hand move the entire body of the ocean right down to the seabed several kilometres below. ibid.
They are so rare scientists cannot be sure what the precursors will be. But of all the large volcanic islands around the world one in particular shows disturbing signs of instability. If this island collapses, it will create a mega-tsunami that will race across the Atlantic and hit the east coast of the United States ... The island of La Palma. ibid.
Everyone knows that America is going to be struck by a devastating earthquake. For years the people of California have been waiting for the day when the San Andreas Fault unleashes the big one. But all the time an even more powerful hazard has lain undiscovered. A giant mega-thrust earthquake just like the one that hit Indonesia threatens America’s Pacific north-west. Horizon: The Next Megaquake, BBC 2004
Mega-thrust earthquakes cause damage at astonishing distances because they create tsunamis. ibid.
The 26th January 1700 at 9 p.m. On that winter’s night a mega-thrust earthquake, just like the Boxing Day earthquake of 2004, struck the Pacific north-west. It drowned forests and turned land into sea. It sent a tsunami hurtling across the Pacific and it spawned a legend that would be passed down through a dozen generations. ibid.
The seismic waves which carry the shaking would be travelling through the Earth at over ten thousand miles per hour. Much faster than the tsunami. In just a few seconds the earthquake would reach the land. ibid.
Just after lunchtime on March 11th the most powerful earthquake ever measured in Japan shook the country. It was big enough to shift the Earth on its axis. It sent a tsunami ten metres high racing towards the mainland. Iain Stewart, Japan Earthquake: A Horizon Special, BBC 2011
The tsunami then triggered a near-meltdown in one of the country’s nuclear power stations. The disaster has claimed over ten thousand lives. Over twice as many are still missing. ibid.
The catastrophic tsunami fatally flooded Doggerland. Horizon: First Britons, BBC 2015
Whenever an earthquake or tsunami takes thousands of innocent lives, a shocked world talks of little else. Anne M Mulcahy
At 2.46 on March 11th 2011 a massive earthquake struck the east coast of Japan. The quake triggered the largest tsunami in Japan’s history. Japan’s Tsunami: Caught on Camera, Channel 4 2011
Twenty-two minutes after the earthquake Kamaishi was the first town to be hit. ibid.
Kesennuma Port, the economic heart of the region’s fishing industry, began to flood: 3:28:00 p.m. ibid.
‘They [boats] made a crunching sound when they collided with each other.’ ibid. witness
Kesennuma Port was submerged under twelve meters of water. ibid.
The city of Lisbon on 1st November 1755 – All Saints Day. It’s one of the most important days in the Christian calendar. And the date of one of the greatest disasters in modern times. Sixty thousand people will die in one day alone. 1755 The Lisbon Earthquake
An earthquake [1755] followed by a devastating tsunami striking with the speed and power that astonishes even the experts. ibid.
Three continental plates converge here. Seismically this is a very active area ... Few realise how vulnerable Europe is. ibid.
In the city the houses start to shake. People described a trembling as if a heavy coach were riding by outside. They do nothing and lose valuable time ... Somewhere to the south-west two continental plates suddenly shift with explosive power. Within two minutes the shockwaves reach the capital. At 9.40 a.m. every church bell in the city begins to ring on its own. Then the sky falls in. ibid.
The 1755 earthquake was Big. ibid.
At the harbour a strange spectacle awaits them – as if the tide has got out and will never come back. ibid.
Tsunamis have a wavelength of sixty to three hundred miles. That means they carry a colossal amount of water. ibid.
Ten years ago a wave made history. The Asian tsunami of 2004 devastates fourteen countries and take a quarter of a million lives. The monster wave spurred scientists into action: they’re racing to discover where and when the next big one could strike and how destructive it can be. The Next Mega Tsunami, National Geographic 2014
Their size is inherently limited by what causes them. Bill McGuire
This will be the biggest natural catastrophe in history. Bill McGuire
Scientists believe that something even more destructive lies in wait ... a mega-tsunami. Could We Survive a Mega-Tsunami? BBC 2013
Canary Islands: A chain of volcanic islands lying off the coast of west Africa. ibid.
Not just vast but fast. ibid.
Whole populations can go into denial. ibid.
Not one wave but several. ibid.
This is the story of the Asian tsunami ... From a distance the waves look relatively innocuous. Tsunami: The Day the Wave Struck, National Geographic 2014
63 million years ago they vanished virtually overnight … An asteroid nine miles across … forty thousand miles an hour … north of modern day Mexico. The Day the Dinosaurs Died, BBC 2017
The team uncovered a dense layer of fossils right at this boundary line. ibid.
Starting with the biggest tsunami in history. ibid.
It was geology at hyper-speed. ibid.
Japan’s most powerful earthquake ever triggers a monster tsunami. Fear washes over the nation. But that’s just the beginning: ten nuclear reactors at two power plants are crippled, threatening the unimaginable. Nova: Nuclear Meltdown Disaster aka Fukushima Uncensored, Nova 2015
This is the road to nowhere. A once thriving place in one of the most prosperous countries on Earth. Japan: radioactive Japan. Time stood still here on March 11th 2011. Houses that aren’t homes. Schools that are silent. Stores shuddered. Towns without people. Past the checkpoints, the scans and the meticulous suit-up layer upon layer upon layer of protection is the place we simply know as Fukushima: site of three nuclear reactor meltdowns. ibid.
The largest [in Japan] ever recorded: Magnitude 9. ibid.
‘The shaking was like nothing I’d experienced.’ ibid.