Tsunami Generation and Coastal Vulnerability

A tsunami is a series of ocean waves generated by the sudden displacement of a large volume of water, most commonly caused by a megathrust earthquake along a subduction zone, when one tectonic plate abruptly slips beneath another and vertically displaces the seafloor above it. Less frequently, tsunamis are generated by submarine or coastal landslides, by the sudden collapse of a volcanic edifice, as in the catastrophic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait, where flank collapse generated waves that killed more than 36,000 people, or, in principle, by a large meteorite impact, though no such impact-generated tsunami has occurred within recorded history.