Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions, landslides and other mass movements, meteorite ocean impacts or similar impact events, and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004, that killed approximately 300,000 people, making it the deadliest tsunami as well as one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

On April 2007, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake hit the East Pacific region about 25 miles northwest of the Solomon Islands resulting in a tsunami that was up to 17 feet tall. On the island of Choiseul, a wall of water reported to be 30 feet high swept almost 400 meters inland destroying everything in its path.

On February 22, 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand. About 120 miles away from the earthquake’s epicenter, 30 million tons of ice tumbled off the Tasman Glacier into the Tasman Lake, producing a series of 11 ft high tsunami waves.

March 11, 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Japan, a magnitude 8.9 earthquake produced a tsunami of 33 feet along Japan’s north eastern coast. The wave caused widespread devastation, with 10,000 people thought dead and many thousands more unaccounted for. In addition it precipitated a hydrogen explosion and a suspected partial nuclear meltdown at The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Tsunami warnings were issued to the entire Pacific Rim.