Tsunami Photos

Here are some amazing tsunami photos – at least, the after effects from tsunami impacts on coastlines. You can make any of these images into your computer desktop background. Just click on an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.

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This is an image of the island of Sumatra after the 2004 tsunami struck, destroying huge portions of the coastline. If you look closely at the photo, you can see how most of the island is green, except for a patch of brown along the western coast.

Deep Ocean Tsunami Waves off the Sri Lankan Coast
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team

This is an image of the southern coast of Sri Lanka, another part of the world ravaged by the 2004 tsunami. This image was taken by NASA’s Terra satellite, showing huge waves just a few kilometers off the coast of the island nation.

Breaking Tsunami Waves along India's Eastern Coast
Image credit:NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team

Here’s an image taken by NASA’s Terra satellite showing huge waves breaking off the coast of India. These were generated by the 2004 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, which traveled across the ocean to strike the coast of India and other countries.

Earthquake off Samoa Generates Tsunami
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using data from the NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

This is an image of the island of Samoa, showing the damage caused by a 2009 tsunami. The damaged areas are highlighted in brown.

Camaná, Peru, and Tsunami Vulnerability
Image Credit: Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory at Johnson Space Center

This is an image of Camaná, in southern Peru, which was struck by a tsunami in 2001. The dotted line shows the part of the town which was inundated by water – waves rose to 8 meters high in some spots.

If you’d like more information about tsunami, check out the NOAA Tsunami website, which has alerts when there are tsunami dangers. And here’s a link to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

We’ve written many articles about tsunami for Universe Today. Here’s a story about a recent earthquake in Chile that generated a tsunami, and here’s an article about the biggest tsunami ever recorded.

We’ve recorded an entire episode of Astronomy Cast all about our home planet. Listen here, Episode 51: Earth.