Why didn’t the Russian Mega earthquake caused more tsunami damage?

It was one of the strongest earthquakes that were ever registered – but so far it has not brought the catastrophic tsunami that many have been afraid.

When an earthquake of 8.8 Eastern Russia water hit 11:25 local time on Wednesday (00:25 GMT), the coastal population fears all over the Pacific.

Millions of people were evacuated, as the minds were restored to the destroyed tsunami on the 2004 boxing day in the Indian Ocean and Japan 2011, both of which resulted from similar large earthquakes.

But today’s tsunami was less severe, although it caused some damage.

So what caused the earthquake and tsunami – and why was it not bad as he was afraid at the beginning?

The Kamchatka Peninsula is far away, but it lies in the “Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean” – what is called due to the large number of earthquakes and volcanoes that occur here.

The upper layers of the ground are divided into sections – tectonic panels – all of which move for each other.

The “Pacific Fire Ring” is an arc of these panels that extend around the Pacific Ocean. Eighty percent of the world’s earthquakes occur along the ring, according to the British geological survey.

About the peninsula coast, the Pacific Panel moves northwest at about 8 cm (3 inches) per year – only twice the rate of your nails grow, but quickly according to tectonic standards.

There is contact with another smaller plate – called Microplate Okhotsk.

The Pacific plate is the oceans, which means that it has dense rocks and wants to sink under the lowest density fine plates.

While the Pacific plate floods toward the center of the earth, it retreats and begins to melt, and disappears effectively.

But this process is not always smooth. The paintings can often stumble as they move around each other and the dominant plate is withdrawn down.

This friction can accumulate over thousands of years, but it can be exported suddenly in just two minutes.

This is known as the Megathrust earthquake.

“When we usually think about earthquakes, we imagine a small center as a small point on the map. However, for these large earthquakes, the error has been torn over hundreds of kilometers,” explained by Dr. Stephen Hicks, a lecturer in environmental earthquake at the University of London University.

“This huge amount of slipping and error space is the one that generates such a high size.”

The largest earthquake registered in history, including the three strongest in Chile, Alaska and Sumatra, were all huge earthquakes.

The Kamchatka island is vulnerable to strong earthquakes.

In fact, the American Geological Survey said another earthquake with a height of 9.0 earthquakes that hit less than 30 km (19mi) from today’s earthquake in 1952.

This sudden movement can replace the water over the panels, which can move to the coast like a tsunami.

In the depths of the ocean, a tsunami can travel more than 500 miles per hour (800 km/h), as soon as possible than a passenger plane.

Here, the distance between the waves is very long and the waves are not very high – rarely more than a meter.

But when a tsunami enters shallow water near the ground, it slows down, often it is about 20-30 miles per hour.

The distance between the waves shortens, and the waves grow in height, which can effectively create the water wall near the coast.

But it is not necessary in any way that a very strong earthquake leads to a tall tsunami, and its arrival inside.

Today’s earthquake brought tsunami of 4 meters (13 feet) in parts of East Russia, according to the authorities there.

But they do not approach the heights of the 2004 boxing day in the Indian Ocean and Japan 2011.

“The high tsunami wave is also affected by the local forms of the sea bottom near the coast and (the shape) of the land that arrives,” said Professor Lisa McKenil, Professor of Tktouni at the University of Southampton.

“These factors, in addition to the appropriateness of the coast, affect the danger of influence,” she added.

The initial reports of American geological survey said the earthquake was focused on a very narrow depth, about 20.7 km (12.9 miles) below the surface of the earth.

This can lead to a greater displacement of the sea floor, thus a larger tsunami wave, but it is definitely difficult to know after the event.

“One of the possibilities is that the tsunami models may have taken a conservative appreciation for the depth of the earthquake,” Dr. Hex told BBC News.

“It is likely to change in this earthquake deeper 20 km away, and this would actually reduce the capacity of the tsunami to a large extent.”

Another important component is to develop early warning systems.

Due to the high occurrence of earthquakes in the Pacific region, many countries have tsunami centers. They send warnings via public advertisements for the eviction.

There was no such a system in place when the boxing day occurred for the year 2004, leaving many people without time to evacuate.

More than 230,000 people died across 14 countries in the Indian Ocean.

Early warning systems are important due to scientists’s limited ability to predict the date of the earthquake.

American geological survey An earthquake measuring 7.4 in the same area was recorded ten days ago.

This may be Foreshock – an early energy version – but it is not an indication of the exact time of a future earthquake, explained by Professor McKenil.

“Although we can use how quickly the panels move, GPS is to measure the current movements and when the previous earthquakes occurred, we can only use this information for expectations of the possibility of an earthquake,” she said.

The geophysical survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GS RAS) will continue to monitor the region because it expects the final tremors to continue for the next month.