National Geographic: Tsunami - Killer Wave Page #3

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We always wondered

what he would have turned out

to be like later on.

He was 14 years old and just

getting to his prime of life.

You can't do anything about it.

You can't do anything more than

just think and talk about it

Bunji's brother was among the 25

who died at Laupahoehoe,

mostly students and their teachers.

Almost all of the bayfront area

was nearly totally destroyed.

The businesses were ripped

right off their foundations.

Many of the structures were wooden

and they were totally collapsed.

The railway which was built

on wooden railway ties

the wooden ties were floated out

by the water

and the rails twisted into pretzels.

One hundred fifty-nine people died

that day

Over time, the city would rebuild.

But this tragedy

would mark a turning point.

Those who lived in the shadow

of the tsunamis

were determined to be better

prepared for the next killer wave.

Just two years later, in 1948,

the U.S. government established

the Pacific Tsunami warning center

in Honolulu.

Today, the center remains on alert

around the clock,

coordinating the efforts

of dozens of Pacific Rim countries.

We try to get a warning out

as quickly as possible,

and we have to go to our resources

to find out where the earthquake is

and what its magnitude is.

And then, given that information,

we issue this warning

to the various participants

in the warning system

in the Pacific.

Equipped with state-of-the-art

satellite technology,

seismic sensors, and a vast network

of wave monitors,

the warning center can track

any major earthquake on the planet

and determine whether a tsunami is

on its way.

Scientists know that

an undersea earthquake,

or a volcanic eruption

anything that causes the sea floor

to shift suddenly

can displace huge volumes of water.

When this disruption

reaches the surface,

a series of waves spreads out.

They can move

as fast as 600 miles per hour.

Unlike a normal wave

caused by wind or tides,

the energy of a tsunami

is evenly distributed

all the way

to the ocean bottom.

In deep water, there's barely

a ripple at the surface

But as a tsunami wave

approaches land, the seafloor rises.

The energy is compressed

and the waves can be pushed up

as high as 100 feet or more.

It's always a number of thousands

of people

that could possibly live or die,

depending on our decision.

Here in the Hawaiian Islands,

for example,

every few years, we have...

That's interesting.

We've got an earthquake

to deal with.

It looks like

it's a small local quake

in the central part of Alaska.

The center detects

two or three quakes every week.

Most like this one

present no threat of tsunami.

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