Tsunami - the meaning of

[ali_alic]

I like most of you have been watching the reports over the last week or so. However although most reports and footage are repeated, one of the first reports mentioned what the word Tsunami actually meant and has not been repeated since.  I remember that the meaning sounded fairly innoxious like 'big wave' - can anyone help??

Cheers

[arthurstace]

From a recent Answerbank Facts & Trivia newsletter:

"Some tsunamis are under three feet high. But they're not to be laughed at because they are still capable of incomprehensible devastation. These tidal waves caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and explosions under the ocean often begin as tiddlers, many miles from land. As they approach the shore at speeds approaching that of a jet aircaft, they increase in size, sometimes becoming hundreds of miles long and several hundred feet tall.
"When they crash upon the land at a velocity of about 45mph, these massive volumes of water can strip beaches of sand, flatten trees and buildings, and kill thousands of people. However, not every tsunami is huge and destructive.
"Tsunami, pronounced "tsoo-nah-me", is a Japanese word that translates into English as "harbour wave". It is a phenomenon most typical to the Pacific Ocean because of its constant underwater geological activity.
"In 1968, a coalition of countries established the Tsunami Warning System for the Pacific (TWSP), a network of seismic monitoring stations and tide gauges, which sends out alert bulletins whenever a tidal wave is approaching land."

[henrymullen]

it is Japanese for HARBOUR WAVE.