Thanks ACF. Since cities gather on the ocean's edge, rather than up in the hills, I suspect that the probability of big damage is improved by tsunami than bulls-eyes on land.
The oceans are huge so the target is easily hit. Then, the energy is only absorbed when the waves hit the shore. People compete heavily for shoreline land and cities like Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai, Capetown, Lisbon, London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, New York, Miami, Lima, Los Angeles, Auckland, Sydney, Gold Coast and so on are waiting for the day!
The shoreline around the Pacific Ocean is crowded with people. It's easier to get them by making a splash than by scoring a bulls-eye on just one of them. The Pacific is huge and hard to miss [50:50 chance of hitting it with a random strike on Earth - only a slight exaggeration and no exaggeration if we throw in the Atlantic Ocean].
A land strike will usually result in some crushed, cooked and vaporized cows and farmers, or often enough, desert. An ocean strike will always reach the shores where the people are crowded.
If I was firing 100 metre bolides, I'd aim for a random hit on the ocean rather than a random hit on land, if I had to maximize my people destruction and economic destruction.
Mqurice |
