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I think this is fairly common knowledge but I'll just yap on anyway because it fascinates me.
Before the details started coming through I wondered if an atomic bomb detonated underwater would have a similar effect to this, but if you think about it, thousands of miles of rock underneath the water lifted up between ten and thirty metres. That's a shitload of water, a few thousand miles worth, being lifted above the surface of the ocean, and since it finds its own level it's gotta end up somewhere. So it spreads out and because the water's deep it doesn't really have much of an effect, there's lots of space for the water to go. As it goes closer to land the water gets more shallow and all the force and power in the water is concentrated into a smaller area, causing it to move faster and get taller really quickly. That just blows me away, that you could be fifty miles from the coast and your little boat might just rock gently, but on the beach it turns into a fifty foot high wave.
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