Tsunami!

[Rob]

An earthquake reported to register 8.1 on the Richter scale, off the northern coast of Japan, has prompted a tsunami warning, and residents of the area are being warned to move quickly to higher ground.

Being unable to do anything to help those people who are at risk, I'm left to wonder: what sort of effect, if any, can this have on the markets?

[Rob]

Looking at a chart of the Dow for Dec. 2004, it looks as though there was minimal effect on the market in the wake of the devastating tsunami in Indonesia, which occurred on the morning of Dec. 26th.

But I still feel for those people living over there. These things can be terribly destructive. Hopefully it will be a smaller event than what is feared.

[alice4321us]

Tsunami

I don't think this could be anything compared to what happened in Indonasia,India and some other islands back then. This earthquake was few hundred miles away and worst they expect are 6 ft high waves atleast I hope this doesn't cause any Tsunami.

[skiracer]

I don't think this could be anything compared to what happened in Indonasia,India and some other islands back then. This earthquake was few hundred miles away and worst they expect are 6 ft high waves atleast I hope this doesn't cause any Tsunami.

I thought the one that hit Indonesia was over 1000 miles from where the devestation occurred.

[Rob]

From the Wikipedia Page on the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake:

The hypocentre of the main earthquake was at 3.316°N, 95.854°E (3°19'N 95°51.24'E), approximately 160 km (100 mi) west of Sumatra, at a depth of 30 km (19 mi) below mean sea level (initially reported as 10 km). The earthquake itself (apart from the tsunami) was felt as far away as Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore and the Maldives.

This page has an amazing volume of information on it, including a pretty awesome animated graphic (under the subheading "Tsunami characteristics") showing how the waves radiated out all the way to the African continent.

The second paragraph into the article also says:

At this magnitude, it is the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. This earthquake was also reported to be the longest duration of faulting ever observed, lasting between 500 and 600 seconds, and it was large enough that it caused the entire planet to vibrate at least half an inch, or over a centimetre. It also triggered earthquakes in other locations as far away as Alaska. (emphasis mine)

8½ to 10 minutes? Having lived in California for many years, and having felt many earthquakes, I would estimate that the longest duration of an earthquake I've ever felt was probably 15-20 seconds. Most of them last less than 5 seconds, and even that can seem like a long time when the earth is moving underneath you. I can't even imagine one lasting longer than a minute, let alone many times that.

Back to the Japan earthquake this morning: Alice, a 6-foot tsunami is quite a bit more serious than a 6-foot wave, due to the sheer volume. One 6-foot wave crashes and subsides and that's it. A 6-foot tsunami is like a sudden rising of the ocean level by 6-feet, quite a different animal. Thankfully, it turns out this one was indeed a lot smaller than they thought it would be.