Why did the Russian mega be more damage to the tsunami?

It was one of the strongest earthquakes, which, if -recorded, but still did not bring catastrophic tsunami, which many were afraid.

When an earthquake 8.8 at 11:25 local time, it caused concern over the coastal population across the Pacific.

Millions of people were evacuated when the minds returned to the devastating tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 in the Indian Ocean and Japan 2011, which caused similar great earthquakes.

But today’s tsunami was much less serious, although it caused some harm.

So, what caused the earthquake and the tsunami – and why wasn’t it as bad as it was originally afraid?

The Kamchatka Peninsula is remote, but lies in the “Pacific Ring of Fire” – the so -called large number of earthquakes and volcanoes that occur here.

The upper layers of the earth are divided into areas – tectonic plates – which all move relative to each other.

The “Pacific Ring of Fire” is an arc of these plates that spread around the Pacific. According to the British Geological Service, eighty percent of earthquakes in the world are happening.

Not far from the coast, the Pacific Ocean plate moves northwest by approximately 8 cm (3 inches) a year – only about twice as much as your nails grow, but quickly by tectonic standards.

There he comes into contact with another, smaller plate – called Okhotsk Microplate.

Pacific oceanic plate, which means it has a dense rock and wants to fall under a less dense microplash.

As the Pacific plate drops to the center of the earth, it heats up and begins to melt, effectively disappears.

But this process is not always smooth. Often the plates can be stuck when they move past each other and the reed plate stretches down.

This friction can accumulate for millennia, but then it can be suddenly released in just a couple of minutes.

It is known as the earthquake earthquake.

“When we usually think of earthquakes, we present the epicenter as a small point on the map. However, such large earthquakes will break for many hundreds of kilometers,” explained Dr. Stephen Hicks, a teacher of seismology in the London College.

“It is this huge amount of slip and the malfunction area that creates such a high magnitude of the earthquake.”

The largest earthquakes recorded in history, including the three strongest in Chile, Alaska and Sumatra, were all megatrical earthquakes.

And the Kamchatka Peninsula is prone to strong earthquakes.

In fact, another 9.0 earthquake happened less than 30 km (19mi) from today’s earthquake in 1952, the US Geological Service said.

This sudden movement can displace water over the plates, which can then travel along the shoreline like a tsunami.

In the deep ocean tsunami can travel with more than 500 km/h (800 km/h), about as fast as a passenger aircraft.

The distance between the waves is very long, and the waves are not very high – rarely more than a meter.

But when the tsunami enters the small water near the ground, it slows down, often up to 20-30 km / h.

The distance between the waves is reduced, and the waves grow in height, which can effectively create a wall of water off the coast.

But this does not guarantee that a very strong earthquake will lead to a particularly high tsunami, which will reach far into the country.

According to the authorities, today’s earthquake brought a tsunami waves in 4 m (13 feet) in parts of Eastern Russia.

But they are not approaching a high -day boxing day in the Indian Ocean and Japan in the Indian Ocean and Japan.

“The tsunami waves also affect the local forms of the seabed on the coast and the land where it arrives,” said Prof. Lisa McNill, Professor Tectonics at Southampton University.

“These factors, however, how much the inhabited coast affects how serious the influence is,” she added.

Initial messages from the American Geological Service say the earthquake was concentrated at a rather narrow depth, about 20.7 km (12.9 miles) below the earth’s surface.

This can lead to greater displacement of the seabed, which means a larger wave of tsunami, but it is difficult to say exactly so quickly after the event.

“One of the opportunities is that the tsunami models may have taken a conservative assessment of the depth of the earthquake,” said D -R -Hick BBC News.

“Potentially you can change this earthquake more than 20 kilometers deeper, and it really will significantly reduce the tsunami waves significantly.”

Another important element is the development of early warning systems.

Due to the high emergence of earthquakes in the Pacific region, there are tsunami centers in many countries. They send warnings through public public evacuation announcements.

Such a system was not created when a tsunami on the 2004 boxing day – leaving a lot of people without evacuation.

More than 230,000 people were killed in 14 Indian Ocean countries.

Early warning systems are important because of the limited ability of scientists to predict when an earthquake occurs.

US Geological Service Recorded an earthquake in the size of 7.4 in the same region ten days before.

Perhaps it was a drug – an early release of energy – but it is not a predictor of the exact terms of the future earthquake, explained Prof.

“Although we can use how fast the plates are moving, GPS to measure current movements and when previous earthquakes have occurred, we can only use this information to make the forecast of the earthquake,” she said.

The geophysical survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GS RAS) will continue to monitor the region as it suggests that the jolts may continue over the next month.