A global ocean circulation model is coupled to a particle-tracking model to simulate the transport of floating debris washed into the North Pacific Ocean by the Tohoku tsunami. A release scenario for the tsunami debris is based on coastal population and measured tsunami runup. Archived 2011/2012 hindcast current data is used to model the transport of debris since the tsunami, while data from 20...

After the Great Sumatra Earthquake and the consequent Indian Ocean Tsunami scientific community puts their attention to alternative methods in ocean monitoring to improve the response of the tsunami warning systems. Improvement of classic techniques, as the seismic source estimation (e.g., Ammon et al., 2006) and densification of number of buoys over the oceans (Gonzalez et al., 2005), was supp...

BACKGROUND On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami. The tsunami caused tremendous damage and traumatized several people, including children. The aim of this study was to assess changes in traumatic symptoms 8, 20, and 30 months of the 2011 tsunami. METHODS The study comprised three groups. Copies of the Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms for Children 15 items (PTSS...

In this paper we show that shallow, elongated parts in a sloping bottom toward the coast will act as a waveguide and lead to large enhanced wave amplification for tsunami waves. Since this is even the case for narrow shallow regions, near-coast tsunami waveguiding may contribute to an explanation that tsunami heights and coastal effects as observed in reality show such high variability along th...

In this article, we assess the human and economic hazard posed by tsunami waves generated from impacts of sub-2 km diameter asteroids. Annually, on average, 182(+197/)123) people will be affected by impact-induced waves with a corresponding infrastructure loss of $18(+20/)12)M/y. Half of the tsunami hazard stems from impactors with diameters less than 300 m. One near Earth asteroid will survive...

Sediments tell a tsunami story Trying to understand where major earthquakes and tsunamis might occur requires analysis of the sediments pouring into a subduction zone. Thick sediments were expected to limit earthquake and tsunami size in the Sumatran megathrust event in 2004, but the magnitude 9.2 earthquake defied expectations. Hüpers et al. analyzed sediments recovered from the Sumatran megat...

Tsunami observations play an important role in resolving offshore earthquake slip distributions. Non-dispersive models are often used with an initial static sea-surface pulse derived from seafloor deformation in computation of tsunami Green's functions. We compare this conventional approach with more advanced techniques, which use Green's functions computed by a dispersive model with an initial...

Pulmonary infection after a tsunami is often polymicrobial and tends to form chronic pyogenic lung disease, necrotizing pneumonia, and empyemas. We report a combined pulmonary infection of Legionella and multiple antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli in a previously well 75-year-old woman following immersion in tsunami waters 1 km inland from the Pacific coastline following the Tohoku Region Pa...

The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami had major effects on coastal communities and ecosystems. An assessment of coastlines after the tsunami indicates that coastal vegetation such as mangroves and beach forests helped to provide protection and reduce effects on adjacent communities. In recent years, mangroves and other coastal vegetation have been cleared or degraded along many coastlines, ...

Water borne diseases such as cholera, enteric fever and dysentery were expected after the tsunami, which hit the coastal areas of Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu. In the present study 151 drinking water sources were collected from the tsunami affected villages and relief shelters and tested for coliforms and pathogens. Nine well water samples were also collected for specific bacteriological an...