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CrowdScience

Do tsunamis affect marine life?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8985 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tsunamis destroy buildings, habitats and danger to everything in its path on land. But how do they affect life under the water? That's what CrowdScience listener Alvyn wants to know, and presenter Anand Jagatia is searching beneath the waves for answers. Anand meets Professor Syamsidik who is learning about how tsuanami waves are formed to help protect against future disasters. He runs the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center at Universitas Syiah Kuala, Indonesia. With him at this state-of-the-art lab is Dr David McGovern, expert in ocean and coastal modelling at London South Bank University. David tells Anand how the energy of a tsunami is spread across the entire water column. To explain the forces at play, Anand chats to Professor Emile Okal a seismologist from Northwestern University in the United States. Tsunami wave can move as fast as 800 kilometres an hour but, despite this, out at sea you might not notice it - but can the same be said for marine life? We follow the wave as it nears land and all that force is contracted and begins to show its might. Professor Suchana 'Apple' Chavanich from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand was one of the first people to swim off the Thai coast after the 2004 tsunami and remembers how coral reefs were battered. In Japan, after the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami as the water retracted it pulled with it tons and tons of debris into the water. The fishing communities of the Sanriku Coast lost almost everything, their equipment was destroyed and the water was heavily polluted. Anand meets Hiroshi Sato who set up the Sanriku Volunteer Divers, a team of people who dragged the debris out of the water. One of them was diver and journalist Bonnie Waycott who tells her story of witnesses the destruction first hand and trying to rescue the fishing industry with Hiroshi. Finally, we learnt that the effect of modern tsunamis carries far further than people might have imagined. On the west coast of the United States Professor Samuel Chan is an expert in invasive species at Oregon State University. He explains how modern infrastructure is contributing to some incredible migrations. Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Tom Bonnett Editor: Ben Motley

Photo: USA, California, Sonoma County, Bodega Bay, tsunami evacuation panel - stock photo Credit: Brigitte MERLE via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:07.0

Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.

0:13.3

But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?

0:19.2

I remember having this very sharp thought

0:21.7

that what you do right now,

0:23.6

this is it, this defines your life.

0:26.0

I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.

0:28.3

I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.

0:33.9

Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.

0:37.0

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:41.3

Millions of people across the Pacific have been told to leave their homes after one of the most powerful earthquakes this century in eastern Russia triggered tsunami warnings.

0:50.7

Earlier this year, in July 2025, countries around the world braced themselves for impending disaster.

0:58.5

Tenami waves crashed into buildings. Some were even swept away by the sheer power of the waves.

1:04.4

In parts of Russia, waves as big as five or six metres collided with the coastline. But things could have been a lot worse.

1:13.0

In the end, despite causing some damage, the tsunami was less severe than expected.

1:18.1

And thanks to a successful early warning system, there were hardly any casualties.

1:23.1

Or at least, that was the situation on land.

1:25.9

But crowd science listener Alvin from the UK has been wondering about the wider picture.

1:31.3

I'm very aware that when we have reports about tsunamis, that we hear about the devastation effect on land,

1:38.4

what I'm completely ignorant about is what's happening below the surface of the water. What is the effect, for example,

1:46.5

of tsunami on fish? What's the effect on the seabed and the plant life there? Essentially,

1:54.9

what's going on? I'm Ann Jagatia, and thanks to listener Alvin, this week on crowd science,

...

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