The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused extensive damage to buildings, infrastructure and to coastal lifeline structures including atomic power plants. Entire regions in Japan were flooded, swept away or reduced to ruin. Similarly, the tsunami in December, 2004 caused extensive damage in several countries in Asia. Earthquake in the seabed sent walls of water against the coasts of southeast Asia. Situation demands for a porous wall construction. Santhanam (2004) reiterated the need of intensive plantations on the coastal line for wave energy dissipation and to protect structures, from direct impact of killer (tsunami) wave. Tsunami resistant buildings must be designed to resist the combined influence of earthquake and tsunamis. Even though tsunami occurrence is rare, it is felt desirable to have a separate code of practice in order to ensure safe/long-term performance of the constructed facilities. The study of damaged buildings (forensic aspects), learning from failures will give more vital information and expected to bring about rational changes to the existing design practice. This paper embodies some critical review of civil engineering aspects to be adopted with tsunami’s effects and the combination of earthquakes and tsunamis in mind. It also gives facts about characteristics of tsunami induced waves. Andhra Pradesh government has decided to construct 1230, dwelling units in the proposed tsunami-resistant housing colonies for fishermen in the coastal villages of Vizianagaram district. Soil investigations were carried out in the proposed sites and recommendations/guidelines were given for better tsunami resistant buildings are discussed.

The tsunami originated by an offshore earthquake is caused due to the slippage of two tectonic plates of India and Burma plates (concept of plate tectonics). The details of Sumatra tsunami and death toll in different regions are given in Figure 1.

It has an epicenter (Figures 1 and 2) of 30 km depth from seabed near Sumatra and it released an estimated energy of 5.39 ´ 103 terra joules which is 40,000 times energy released by the nuclear bomb dropped by America on Hiroshima city in Japan (Rao and Neelima, 2005). Tsunami velocity is dependant on depth of water through which it travels (velocity proportional to the squareroot of water depth h, ). They travel at a speed of approximately 600-700 kmph in deep sea water and 30-40 kmph as they approach the shore. Their height ranges from 3 m in deep sea and up to 30 m (Figure 3) as it approaches the shore (Arya, 2005)

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