I think that tsunami must have lot more power than a rogue wave, however large. This is because as the linked article in the post above notes, with a tsunami, an earthquake lifts up the entire surface of the sea. Well, I guess it's actually the entire water volume of an area of the sea from the seabed to the surface. Tsunami are not high at all in the open ocean, and are probably largely unnoticed by ships as they pass under them. As they approach the coast, and the seabed grows shallow, however, they get bigger, the surface of then sea rises further, as there is no longer space below to contain the moving volume of water.
I was in Japan for the 2011 earthquake that moved the entire country eight feet. In Tokyo, where I was, there was a whole lotta shakin' going on. But, up the northeast coast, where the tsunami hit, there were places where the coast was flat that the tsunami penetrated six miles inland. Other places, where seaside villages nestled between mountains, the water went way up — as high as 90 ft as I recall — the mountainsides.
Watching the 2011 tsunami hit Japan — it was well into the age of smartphones so there are lots of videos — it just looks like the surface of the sea has risen higher, and a wall of water, the entire ocean, is rushing in. There is no typical, cresting, discernible wave shape to watch.
About twenty thousand people died in the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The January 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that hit Southeast Asia killed almost 230,000 people.
