11/14/07 - OREGON - Stormy weather on Monday had emergency crews busy with downed trees and power outages, but officials in Seaside had a different problem. The powerful storm somehow triggered the city's tsunami warning siren, sending residents and tourists fleeing to higher ground. The siren began wailing at about 8 a.m., just as strong winds were raking the coast. The city fire marshal made the rounds assuring people it was a false alarm.
11/7/07 - MEXICO - the huge wave of mud and water which swept through a village in southern Mexico was described as a "mini-tsunami" that wiped out structures in its path and may have swept away, rather than buried, its victims. The landslide, which happened on Monday when heavy rainfall caused a hillside to collapse into a river, blocked an already rain-swollen waterway and pushed a wall of water and debris over the remote village of San Juan Grijalva, home to about 600 people. Most fled into the hills ahead of the advancing wave. "It was something horrible. You can only see the floor of the church that was there, a school that was there. This village practically disappeared." Television footage suggested the wave had swept the entire river valley, and helicopters searched the surrounding hills to rescue residents who had fled to higher ground. Officials in Chiapas said between 14 and 16 people were missing, while the Mexican interior department put the number at 16. No bodies were immediately discovered. "A severe landslide on a hill fell into the Grijalva River, causing an abrupt displacement of water that momentarily covered the village."
10/31/07 - NORWAY - The government has allocated an extra NOK 10 million (USD 1.87 million) to monitor the unstable mountain areas along Storfjorden in M�re og Romsdal County. An avalanche along Storfjorden (the big fjord) would create a tsunami at least as large as the one that smashed into Tafjord in 1934, killing 40 people. Tafjord is deeper into the fjord than the mountain areas near �knes, where a major avalanche is now feared. The mountain has been regularly monitored for the past 50 years and has begun to move with increasing speed, with cracks growing at the rate of several centimeter a year. In 2007 changes of up to 3 millimeters (.11 inch) a week have been registered. The Tafjord avalanche caused a tsunami that was 64 meters (210 feet) high. In 1905 a similar catastrophe struck Loen in Stryn, when Ramnefjellet unleashed a rock slide, and 61 people were killed. Those disasters were completely unexpected, but the monitoring system that will now be put in place should allow for 24-hour readiness, and the possibility to evacuate residents before the mountain gives way.
10/30/07 - MAN-MADE PROBLEM - IRAQ's largest dam is in serious danger of collapse and up to 500,000 people could die if it does, an alarming US assessment has found. US officials concluded that Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, could be left under almost 20 metres of water and parts of Baghdad could be under 4.5 metres. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability." A U.S. project to strengthen the dam has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement. The dam, built in the early 1980s, has major structural problems because it was built on top of gypsum, which dissolves when it comes into contact with water. Millions of tonnes of material have been applied to the dam wall to shore it up since then, but US officials say the structure still represents a very significant threat.
10/29/07 - The Minoans created extraordinary artifacts for hundreds of years, revealing an aesthetic sensibility that influences Western civilization to this day. Then they simply disappeared. Scholars are seeking answers to one of the great mysteries of the ancient world: What happened to the Minoans of Crete, who controlled a thriving Mediterranean trade network from around 2,200-1,450 BC? NOVA reports on new evidence that a massive tsunami struck the Bronze Age society 3,500 years ago, destabilizing the culture to such a degree that social chaos brought about its ultimate destruction. �It was clear that after the ash from the Thera volcano had dusted the town, a gigantic tsunami hit Palaikastro Bay.� The tidal wave was �terrifyingly destructive,� perhaps larger than the Indian Ocean tsunami that hit Banda Aceh in 2004. A revised computer model now suggests that the wave generated by the Thera eruption was 10 times larger, wider, longer than originally estimated. When it hit Palaikastro, it may have been around 15 meters high.
10/7/07 - Tsunamis after next Cascadia earthquake might be more damaging than ground shaking - Ground shaking caused by the next predicted Cascadia earthquake off the western coast of British Columbia is expected to result in losses of between US$40 and US$60 billion � and damage losses resulting from the accompanying tsunami waves could be even larger than that, based on studies of the scale of tsunami run-up from a rupture of the whole 1,100-km long Cascadia Subduction Zone, or just its northern segment. Such an earthquake, scientists predicted �would have [tsunami] run-ups in the 5-8 metre range, and as high as 16 metres in places.� Even minimum, high-velocity inundations of between 0.3 km and 1.3 km � with a mean inundation of 0.5 km � �highlight the serious threat of a future tsunami to the coastal zone of British Columbia and the western United States.� In California, economic loss estimates as a result of a tsunami are on the order of US$270 billion.
10/2/07 - MALAYSIA - Recalling the tsunami that struck several villages in Kuala Muda, three years ago, more than 100 families living in several villages near the beach left home in a hurry Monday morning, October 1, when a group of fishermen saw exceptionally huge waves out at sea. In the incident at 7:30am, a group of fishermen who were at sea had to turn back after seeing huge waves in the middle of the sea which they had never seen before. "What we saw this morning was most exceptional. In the past, we had never turned back before catching fish, but this time we felt something strange was happening at sea, so we turned back to shore immediately." The fishermen's return to shore created panic among villagers and many parents had rushed to pick up their children who were studying at school to seek shelter. The occurrence of the huge waves out at sea resulted in almost all the residents of Kampung Tepi Sungai running away for shelter. But the villagers were greatly relieved when told that the huge waves that had formed about 15 kilometres from the coast had subsided. A tsunami warning was not issued following the occurrence of the huge waves. Three fishermen who were out at sea in the Kuala Muda waters were reported missing after being hit by strong waves within the past three days and two of them were found drowned, while the search for the third victim was still going on.
AUSTRALIA - The tsunami warning for Australia's southern island state of Tasmania resulted in little more than a few UNUSUAL swells along its coast. The warning was issued after the strong 7.4 undersea earthquake near New Zealand. The Weather Bureau and emergency services went on alert on Sunday afternoon, when a recently installed deep ocean tsunami detection buoy anchored off New Zealand detected an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the richter scale. A tsunami alert was issued for Tasmania, coastal New South Wales and Victoria. On Tasmania's east coast, tidal surges of up to 20 centimetres were recorded at Spring Bay, and St Helens. There were also reports of UNUSUAL ebbs and flows in the Derwent River. The weather bureau cancelled the tsunami alert on Sunday night, saying there had been no reports of damage.
10/1/07 - NEW ZEALAND - the quake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale near the uninhabited Auckland Islands, around 500 kilometres south of the New Zealand mainland, caused a slight tsunami which had largely dissipated by the time it reached the Tasmanian coast around 1,500 kilometres away. Authorities in Tasmania say the impact of the 20 centimetre wave was minimal.
9/25/07 - MOZAMBIQUE - On September 12, the Mozambican government issued a tsunami alert and ordered people living on or near the Indian Ocean coast to abandon their homes. More than 2,000 people fled Mozambique Island after "confusing information" was issued by the local media on the impeding tsunami. The national disaster management said that while an alert was issued by the organisation, misleading information by the local media resulted in the residents of the island panicking and leaving the island en masse. More that two million people live along Mozambique's coast, which stretches for more than 2 000 kilometres, while hundreds others lives on Mozambican islands.
9/19/07 - INDONESIA - Despite the intensity of the shallow 8.4 undersea earthquake last week, a quirk of nature sent the full force of the tsunami that it generated out to sea, preventing a repeat of the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that killed more than 230,000 people. The huge mass of water spawned by the initial 8.4-magnitude quake was pushed to sea rather than land. "It could have quite easily have been the other way." "It's a quirk of nature that this is how it happened." Pressure between the shifting Australian-Indian and Asian plates had been building up over hundreds of thousands of years and was ready to explode.
9/16/07 - INDIA - The House Committee on natural calamities has identified 165 villages along the Orissa coast as vulnerable to high tidal waves in the wake of Tsunami. The villages are located within two km of the sea beach and prone to high tidal waves. While the effect of a Tsunami with epicentre at Myanmar would be felt at Orissa within 35 minutes, the impact of a Tsunami with epicentre at Indonesia could be felt within five hours in the Orissa coast and they recommended shifting of these villages to safer places. The committee expressed its concern over the rising sea level eating into the landmass in some areas. The state government has sought the assistance of the of Oceanography department to find out the reasons of rising sea level and suggest measures to tackle it, and the committee recommended constructing a coastal highway to protect human habitations from the rising tidal waves. The committee also expressed its concern over the large-scale destruction of mangroves and casurina forests and unauthorised construction along the coast and decided to seek central assistance to recreate the forests.
9/6/07 - ASIA - Next killer tsunami long overdue - A powerful earthquake on the same fault line that triggered the 2004 Boxing Day disaster could strike at any time in the Bay of Bengal, threatening tens of millions of people living on the coasts of Burma and Bangladesh with a devastating tsunami, a scientist has warned. Major earthquakes at the extreme northern end of the fault happen, on average, about once a century - and the next one could be long overdue. The fault line marks where the Indian tectonic plate is being forced under the plate carrying the south-east Asian land mass. At the northern end, the collision of the plates is raising the Himalayan mountains. While "there seems to be relatively little concern about" about what is happening beneath the Bay of Bengal, research suggests there is "a high potential for giant earthquakes along the coast of Myanmar [Burma]" and "a large and vulnerable population is thereby exposed" to a significant hazard. The last big quake struck the area on April 2, 1762. Land movement data suggests the region experienced a magnitude 9 quake on average every 500 years. However, smaller quakes could strike every century. "There is no question there will, some day, be a large quake ... if the next one is a magnitude 8, it is already overdue. The population is huge now. With more than 240 years passing since the last big quake, local residents may have lost the knowledge to seek higher ground on feeling the earth rumble."
INDIA - The massive erosion on the Orissa coastline, mainly between Puri and Konark, has its links to the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean in 2004, according to experts of the Institute of Oceanography Management. Both the 2004 tsunami and UNUSUAL activation of the south-west monsoon, are responsible for rapid sea erosion in Orissa coast. Due to the impact of December 2004 tsunami, the sea waves along Orissa coast had become rough and active. The sea coast near Paradip is also facing similar threats from the changing pattern of waves.
8/30/07 - CANADA - A mountain-sized meteorite appears to have created Sudbury's gigantic crater and sent a tsunami racing though ancient oceans, say scientists who have uncovered a thick layer of debris the extraterrestrial interloper hurled all the way into Michigan. The two-to-four-metre-thick layer of "ejecta," which they found south of Lake Superior, bears the clear signature of a meteorite. Perhaps even more intriguing, they say the "ejecta" appears to have been stirred up by a "mega-tsunami," possibly two, that swept through the ancient oceans after the space rock hit. "The material blown out of the crater was reworked during deposition by a tsunami." Shock waves generated by the impact of the meteorite, believed to have been about the size of Mt. Everest, would have been powerful enough to generate giant waves in near-by oceans. "We also get beautiful rock preserved in tear drops just as you'd expect if you had molten rock flying through the atmosphere and it cooled." The Sudbury crater, the second largest ever found, was formed 1.85 billion years ago and is much bigger than the one linked to the demise of the dinosaurs. Some have suggested a comet carved out the crater, which originally measured up to 280 kilometres in diameter. But the material uncovered in northern Michigan points to a meteorite, since it contains an unusually high concentration of iridium, which occurs in low amounts in icy comets but in high levels in space rocks. The "ejecta layer," which the geologists found buried a kilometre underground south of Lake Superior, builds on similar evidence uncovered near Thunder Bay, Ontario, a few years ago. The newly found material not only contains high levels of iridium and "melt drops" but also "shocked" crystals deformed by the intense energy, and evidence of reworking by a tsunami, the team reports. The impact of the meteorite would have been felt globally but most of the evidence has eroded away over time. The huge cloud of gas and molten rock hurled into the atmosphere would have put photosynthesis on hold for an extended period and may be linked to a "long lull" in the evolution of early life.
8/28/07 - Hong Kong and Macao are enormous, sprawling economic centres perched on the coast. And both stand a 10 per cent chance of being hit by a serious tsunami in the next century, warn geophysicists. The warning follows a new assessment of how earthquakes along the nearby Manila trench could radiate tsunami waves across the South China Sea. Although Chinese records of tsunamis date back to AD 171, the hazard was largely ignored until the cataclysmic Sumatra tsunami in 2004. However, the structure of the complex plate boundary on the eastern side of the South China Sea, running from Taiwan to the Manila trench, makes shallow subduction-related quakes particularly likely. This problem was highlighted by the quake in December 2006 that hobbled internet traffic in the region when it ripped through subsea data cables. Such earthquakes could also trigger tsunamis. All coastal regions, stretching north from Macao and Hong Kong to beyond Shantou - a city of 1.2 million people - have about a 1-in-10 chance of being struck by a tsumani within 100 years.
8/22/07 - PERU - Approximately 150 fishermen in the districts of Chucuito and La Punta, located in the Province of Callao, were affected by a tidal wave that struck the shores of the province west of Lima. The tidal wave occurred on Thursday August 16, one day after the magnitude-8 earthquake hit Peru. Fishermen were extremely affected by the tidal wave after it destroyed most of their boats which were sunk or completely destroyed. The fishermen's nets were damaged and are useless. In addition, most of the tools which they used to fish were dragged away into the ocean when it returned to its normal level. The wharf, which had been used by the fishermen for 15 years, also was completely destroyed. They are requesting that loans be approved so that the fishermen can purchase new boats and tools to begin working again. Presently the ocean is calm and would be adequate for fishing, which can not be done because of the lack of equipment.(photo)
8/19/07 - HAWAII - A small tsunami from the Peru quake hit Hilo on Thursday, 8/16. Had it come in daylight, the mini-tsunami that hit the Hawaiian Islands might have been noticeable at Hilo and Kahului. But the biggest local wave, generated Wednesday by the earthquake in Peru, was only 27 inches high when it hit Hilo at 2:20 a.m. Thursday. Hilo had the largest wave at 27 inches. Additional tsunamis continued every 17 minutes for a day, though by noon Thursday the wave size had dropped to 7 inches. Kahului's largest wave was about 23 inches. Honolulu Harbor's largest wave was only 3 to 4 inches.
The impact of the 2004 Asian tsunami was so far reaching it sent sea swells and waves crashing ashore along the east coast of Canada, says a new study that calls for a better tsunami warning system in the Atlantic. In what the scientists describe as a REMARKABLE PHENOMENON NEVER SEEN BEFORE, the giant sea wave generated by the earthquake under the Indian Ocean raced through two oceans and added considerable force to a storm pounding the eastern seaboard more than a day later. The two combined to create waves more than a metre high that hit the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia. The storm and tsunami were each responsible for waves which combined creating "strongly amplified waves" of more than a metre that caused major flooding in the Halifax area. The tsunami was felt on Canada's east and west coast at almost the same time, 30 hours after the earthquake. The impact was greater in the Maritimes because it amplified the impact of the fierce storm. The findings suggest the tsunami threat is more serious than previously believed in the Atlantic, and that a better warning system is needed to warn quickly of incoming tsunamis.
8/17/07 - JAPAN - Small tsunami waves reached Japan on Friday following the deadly earthquake in Peru, resulting in the closure of beaches along Japan's Pacific coast. Japan's Meteorological Agency said waves of up to 20 centimeters (8 inches) reached parts of the coast Friday morning, hours after a tsunami advisory was issued covering Hokkaido in the north to the southern island of Okinawa. Japan is about halfway across the globe from Peru. The agency lifted the advisory Friday afternoon but advised surfers and swimmers to stay away from the sea. Japan issues tsunami warnings even when only tiny waves are expected, and the country's most heavily populated coastlines are fitted with loudspeakers to order evacuations. The quake in Peru's southern desert on Wednesday killed at least 510 people and injured more than 1,500.
8/16/07 - Although the northern Atlantic Ocean has low tsunami hazards, tsunamis from distant seismic events could threaten coastal infrastructure and habitat when the waves coincide with winter storm waves. During the 2004 tsunami, which propagated throughout the world's oceans, the arrival of the tsunami along the shores of Maine and Nova Scotia coincided with the presence of tsunami-like waves generated by a major storm tracking northward along the U.S. eastern seaboard. The combined waves reached heights in excess of 1 meter (3.3 feet).
INDONESIA - Geologists fear an undersea mud mountain may trigger a tsunami. A giant mountain of mud found under the Indian Ocean's Nicobar Islands is being closely monitored by geologists who fear a tsunami could be triggered by a massive landslide. Geologists from India recently discovered the giant mud mountain and some parts of it measure more than seven kilometres high. There was little information on the mud formation but it is widely believed it was formed over a thousand years by sediment transported by rivers accumulating under the sea. The mud mountain is only 400 km from Phuket. Geologists found four smaller mud mountains only 200 km from Phuket island during a survey last year. Those finds are less scary, compared to the one near the Nicobar Islands. Mud-triggered tsunamis have occurred before in Canada and Australia.
8/13/07 - ALGERIA - Ten days after the sinking of 12 vacationers in Mostaganem, local authorities have not lifted a finger to unveil the facts, and media are promoting a �micro-tsunami� whose reasons are still unknown. The Civil Protection Regional Department made it clear that �dead in the incident taking place last Friday, August 3rd 2007 are estimated at 12; and 126 have been rescued from a genuine death danger who swam in uncontrolled beaches.� This mere clarification, ten days after the incident that took 12 lives, has not dissipated widespread rumors that mention a seven-to-ten-meter wave that washed away many people. The odd thing is that the �Huge� wave has chosen to affect only people, not anything else, as civil protection services have recorded no property damages.
8/10/07 - LEBANON - A new underwater survey has revealed that Lebanon lies dangerously close to a fault that could soon generate a catastrophic tsunami. The fault, which according to the survey lies just four miles off Lebanon's coast, caused a tsunami-generating earthquake in 551 A.D. that devastated the coastal cities of Phonecia, or modern-day Lebanon. The previously unknown submarine fault is responsible for the build-up of the Mount Lebanon range that towers around 10,000 meters above sea level. The fault moves approximately every 1,500 years, meaning that a disaster of the same magnitude as the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed coastal cities on July 9, 551, could be due any day. According to historical accounts, that ancient event caused the sea to retreat up to 10,000 meters. Tripoli was reported to have "drowned," while Beirut took nearly 1,300 years to recover from the cataclysm. "It was arguably one of the most devastating historical submarine earthquakes in the eastern Mediterranean." Along the coast offshore of Mount Lebanon, the team of researchers found relatively fresh seafloor seismic breaks, indicating that an active thrust fault is responsible for major earthquakes there. Based on their research, the team estimated that the 551 disaster was caused by a rupture at least 62 miles long on the offshore Mount Lebanon thrust. The rupture caused a magnitude 7.5 quake. Part of the seafloor collapsed by 5 to 10 feet, triggering a tsunami. At least four earthquakes similar to the 551 event have occurred over the past 6,000 to 7,000 years.
8/9/07 - ALGERIA - A giant wave described by local residents as a "mini-tsunami" claimed the lives of 12 Algerian bathers last week on Friday on a beach in the west of the Mediterranean-rim country. Algeria's civil protection agency could give no official explanation for the giant wave that struck the beach near the town of Mostaganem. A chief research scientist at Algeria's Centre for Research in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Geophysics said he thought the wave could have been the result of conventional weapons testing. The phenomenon "could have been caused by a scientific test and one could guess that it was a scientific test of conventional weapons," adding that France, Italy and Spain all conduct these sorts of tests. "It is however difficult to speak of a tsunami, because such an event is on a much larger scale, while the wave at Mostaganem affected only one beach." A tremor measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale was registered at 2108 GMT in the middle of the Mediterranean basin by an observation centre in the French city of Strasbourg, but not by the CRAAG. The failure to detect this tremor could have been down to a malfunction of the centre's instruments.
8/8/07 - PAKISTAN - The director of the National Disaster Management Cell has warned all provincial governments of a massive tidal wave in the Arabian Sea on August 9. Addressing a press conference he warned all the provincial governments that it might affect Pakistan as well, "advising them to take precautions against any unwonted situation arising out of the situation, well in advance." Recent rains and floods in the country have affected 5000 villages, 5500 houses destroyed, 2 million population suffered, while 50,000 persons were displaced. 483 relief camps have been set up, with the death toll at 330, and 1224 persons missing. [see article below in the tropical storm category]
7/29/07 - THAILAND - People in the resort province of Krabi were thrown into a panic when loud sirens from tsunami warning towers blared out across beachfronts on two occasions yesterday. Tourists and locals on Koh Phi Phi in Muang district and those in Koh Lanta and Ao Luk districts sprinted for their lives as they headed for higher ground, only to find later that the warning was a false alarm. The first false alarm was heard at around 4.40pm and lasted about an hour. The towers sounded the chilling warnings again at 6.30pm. The warning towers continued to emit the warning sounds for so long that people began to wonder if they were genuine and decided to query the local early warning centre. They were told that it was a technical error. The false alarm could dent public confidence in the efficiency of the warning system. In future, if a tsunami or a storm really happens and the alarm goes off, people may mistake it for another false alarm and their lives could be put in danger. Staff at the warning centre were slow to respond to the false alarm and failed to properly explain to the public what was going on. Staff at the early warning centre should not rely too heavily on technology and scientific hardware alone and need to check what was really happening before issuing evacuation warnings. "Warning devices by the sea are prone to technical errors caused by the humidity of the climate."
7/24/07 - THAILAND - Although it has been almost three years since the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated Thailand's Andaman coastline, including Patong beach in Phuket, tourists visiting the rebuilt resort island still can't stop thinking about the massive waves. Even the warning system now in place has not helped that much in easing the fears of both tourists and locals. Tourists are confused about procedures and even the locals are not sure how the 100-million-baht warning system really works, and they also doubt its efficiency due to several false alarms. Surprisingly, hotels are reluctant to hook up to the system, which casts even more doubt on the readiness of Thailand to cope with another tsunami. So far, 79 warning towers have been built. No more than 10 of the 500 hotels in Phuket are linked to the warning system and the hotels which have hooked up doubt the system's efficiency. Representatives of three hotels on Patong beach have argued that their hotels are already near enough to the towers to hear any warnings that go out, so it is not necessary for them to hook up to the system. "That argument is unacceptable. What about the tourists who sleep in air-conditioned rooms?" asked Smith Dharmasarojana, founder of the disaster centre and an outspoken retired official. A decade ago, Mr Smith's warning of a possible tsunami disaster in Phuket was ignored.
6/7/07 - INDONESIA - Thousands of people fled their homes in panic on the Indonesian coast after hoax SMS messages warned them a tsunami will hit the region. "The possibility is that a tsunami may take place on June 7," said part of a short telephone text message (SMS) that is widely circulating in various coastal areas of Nusa Tenggara province. A check of several coastal districts in the province showed that thousands had left their homes on the coast in at least three districts to flee to higher grounds since yesterday. "Rumours are running strong in the district that a tsunami will strike the region on June 7." The regional meteorology and geophysics office said that the SMS warning did not come from their office. "Earthquakes and tsunami cannot be predicted and we have not issued such warning." However, most residents refused to return to their coastal home fearing the rumour could come true. A false tsunami alarm on Monday sparked a general panic in the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, causing thousands of people to frantically scamper to higher ground. INDONESIA - Angry residents in Indonesia's Aceh have disabled a tsunami warning system after the false alarm spread panic in a province still traumatised by the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Residents cut power to a siren on a tsunami warning tower in the Lhoknga area near the provincial capital Banda Aceh by smashing an electricity box. A technical glitch prompted the siren to ring for about 30 minutes in Aceh Besar district on Monday, sending residents rushing out of their homes in panic. In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, Indonesian officials have come under pressure to bring in a network of warning systems, but many vulnerable areas in the huge developing country remain excluded. There have also been frequent technical glitches with the systems in place.
5/8/07 - OMAN - Rumours about an impending tsunami may have died down, but the potential of the disaster striking Oman's eastern coast from the Makran subduction zone cannot be ruled out, according to a Canadian palaeontologist. There is hard evidence within living memory of a tsunami striking Oman's eastern side which raises the possibility of a tsunami striking Oman in the future. The tsunami of November 28, 1945 was a major incident in the region when an earthquake of magnitude 8 caused great devastation in the Makran area of Pakistan. More than 4,000 people were killed on the Makran Coast by both the earthquake and the tsunami. The waves reached a height of over 10 metres in some Makran ports and caused great damage to the entire coastal region, including the Omani coast.
5/7/07 - OMAN - Rumours of an approaching tsunami swept through Muscat Thursday, spreading panic among residents of the sultanate. But scientists dismissed the fears as unfounded. The rumours of a tsunami set to hit Qurum beach Thursday or Wednesday spread like wildfire. Phone lines in the Omani capital were jammed with worried residents trying to find out the truth. Scientists rubbished the rumours and called it a figment of imagination.
5/2/07 - A tsunami early warning system would have been of little use for the thousands of people in the Solomon Islands hit by deadly waves since they had only minutes to escape. The South Pacific tsunami was a perfect example of the �limits� of such a system, since witnesses reported that a wall of water 16 feet high plowed into the Solomons� shores within about five minutes of the quake. The quake set off tsunami alarms from Tokyo to Hawaii. An Australian official meanwhile acknowledged that a tsunami warning issued for the Queensland coast was undermined by widespread panic and a lack of clear information about whether the waves were actually headed their way. U.S. earthquake expert Kerry Sieh, who has studied the 2004 Indonesian tsunami disaster, said coastal communities near a quake epicenter would be better off putting their resources into disaster response education and efforts to permanently relocate vulnerable communities to higher ground rather than counting on an alert system to save them. � When you have a tsunami coming in so quickly after an earthquake, it doesn�t do much good to have an early warning system. It could still be valuable for people who are at greater distances. That is the main reason for a warning system in the Pacific.�
4/13/07 - SOLOMONS - The chances of another large earthquake and tsunami in the north-west Solomon Islands are slim, according to a visiting tsunami expert. Rumours are rife in Gizo and other regions hit hard by the recent earthquake and tsunami that another tremor and wave will strike soon. It would be very unlikely to have another very big earthquake in the same area. "Nobody can predict earthquakes, but after a very big earthquake like this 8.1 event, the stresses between the plates in that location are released. It will take a long time to build stress up again at the same location. But there's no guarantee."
HAWAII - This month marks the 61st anniversary of the most destructive tsunami ever to strike the Hawaiian Islands. On the morning of April 1, 1946, a wall of water as high as 56 feet struck parts of the Big Island, killing 159 people across the state. In Hilo, a total of 96 people lost their lives to a 25-foot wall of water that tore every house on Main Street off its foundation. The tsunami waves were generated almost 4,500 miles away by an earthquake off the Aleutian Islands. It was originally measured as a 7.2 temblor. But now experts say judging by the wave heights produced, it was closer to 8.5. That tsunami event was made up of about 24 waves in Hilo. Eight of those were big enough to kill. The cost of the damage statewide was $26 million at the time, which equates to about $280 million today.
4/9/07 - THAILAND - Tests of Thailand's tsunami warning system along the Andaman Sea coast southwest of Bangkok were suspended Sunday after uninformed locals and foreigners panicked. After technically successful tests on Saturday, they were a public relations failure on Sunday. The test along the 800-kilometre coastline went well in areas where people were informed there would be a test, but in other areas people were not told and there was a lot of confusion and panic. The system of 100 towers in the six provinces where the December 26, 2004, tsunami killed more than 5,000 Thais and foreigners is meant to prevent another such disaster.
4/8/07 - SOLOMONS - Many residents said they noticed animals behaving strangely just before the tsunami washed ashore. In Gizo, shortly after the earthquake, they noticed that all the neighborhood dogs were running away from the sea. "The dogs started running to the hills." Within minutes, a fast and powerful wave slammed into the coastline of Gizo and several other neighboring islands. The wave was only a few feet high, so water damage was confined to exposed beaches. Tsunami awareness helped save lives. When the quake first hit, most residents here knew that a tsunami was a real possibility, and they fled to higher ground. Many are still there. (photos)
INDIA - A tsunami rumour triggered panic at the Christian pilgrim centre, Basilica shrine in Tamil Nadu where thousands of people had arrived to offer Easter prayers on Friday. The police said some "anti-social elements" and thieves spread the rumour that a possible tsunami was to strike the coast anytime. The rumour soon spread and pilgrims who were staying in lodges, cottages and other shelters went into a panic remembering the ravages of the December 2004 tsunami which claimed several lives in the area. Hundreds of visitors decided to return home following the rumour.
4/6/07 - SOLOMONS - relief workers are now fighting an outbreak of diarrhea among the thousands of people who were displaced by the earthquakes and subsequent tsunami that devastated parts of the Solomon Islands. Scores of people were still missing and up to 5,400 people are crammed into makeshift camps in hills behind their coastal villages, too scared to go home. People "are now starving in Western and Choiseul provinces as aid slowly makes its way around the provinces." 30 people are presumed dead, with 100 still missing and 2,000 still homeless. "We are preparing for a worsening of the known numbers of the dead, of course in a situation like this, many people may just simply disappear when there's a tsunami, a giant wave in low lying areas, we may not find some of those who've been lost."
4/3/07 - SOLOMON ISLANDS - Confusion and panic have again seized the Solomon Islands with reports some islanders are expecting another tsunami today. A dive operator based on the tsunami-hit western island of Gizo told ninemsn that another wave is expected shortly. "We're waiting at the moment, there's another wave coming at lunchtime � it's building in the deep water, apparently. There's a lot of confusion, people are telling lots of different stories � it's difficult to really fathom just how much damage has been done. I can see from here where a couple of villages should be and they're just gone."
AUSTRALIA - Since 1900, the Solomons has borne the brunt of 36 earthquakes registering 7.0 or more on the Richter scale, but none had reached 8.0 until yesterday. "This is a one-in-100-year earthquake for this area. The motion of one plate pushing under the other is extremely conducive to changes on the sea floor that can cause a tsunami. The trench along where this rubbing of the plates occurs is very steep, creating the possibility of a huge undersea landslide. If that happens, that's when tsunamis can be huge." A big tsunami could easily have headed Australia's way from that location. "We knew yesterday morning the earthquake was big enough, but we weren't sure for some hours if a tsunami heading toward Australia was going to result...But if you want to have an earthquake that generated a tsunami that could impinge on Australia, this is one of the prime locations."
3/26/07 - SOMALIA - A powerful earthquake of unknown magnitude hit a northeastern Somalia town with many people unaccounted for overnight, local officials said on Sunday. The tremble rocked Qandalla town of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. At least eight people are missing and are feared to have died in the quake. The earthquake generated a tsunami which rocked the town causing casualties. Powerful ocean waves wiped out the town, destroying many fishing boats. 16 people were rescued from the waves. It was the first time that a tsunami hit the northeastern Somalia town of Qandalla since December 2004 when tsunami waves from as far as Indonesia hit the Hafun district of Puntland settlements. The Somalia tragedy follows the earthquake of magnitude 7.1 which struck off the west coast of Japan's largest island, Honshu. [Site note - this story has not been reported or verified by the large news websites, so far, nor have I found any Somalian quake mentioned on the USGS quake site.]
3/12/07 - AUSTRALIA had a reputation as a region where few tsunami hit, but there have been 37 reported in the last 150 years. "Relatively speaking, this is a much higher rate of occurrence than many other regions of the globe." One tsunami hit in August 15, 1868, after a large earthquake had rocked Chile the previous day. When it hit Australia, its impact was felt hardest in the west, where a four-metre wave inundated the coastline near Shark Bay, carrying rocks, coral and fish up to 300 metres inland.
2/26/07 - The next tsunami threat to India may be from the West - The Indian sub-continent could face the next tsunami threat from the West, and not the East, as the 500-km fault line along Baluchistan remains dangerously vulnerable to earthquakes of high magnitudes. "This rupture zone, lying East to West near South Iran, is much narrower compared to the 1,200-km-long weak zone along the Indonesian island, where the 9.1 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that devastated the East coast of India and Sri Lanka in December 2004. However, this has remained silent for long and poses a live danger to the West coast of India." Nobody knows when it last 'moved' in the recent past, but it is a potential danger to the West coast of the sub-continent, as an earthquake of even a small magnitude could trigger a tsunami. The north Indian belt is one of the most dangerous belts prone to earthquake and the cities in this part of the country face a major threat due to dense population.
2/8/07 - MEDITERRANEAN - Experts from 26 nations gathered in Bonn on Wednesday for a three-day conference on a tsunami early-warning system for the North Atlantic and Mediterranean regions. The discussions will center on ways to merge the various national early warning systems into an effective emergency plan, to ensure that a warning system collecting data from buoys and satellites is linked to efforts on the ground such as stores of supplies and directions to emergency shelters. Experts say the chance of a major tsunami hitting the Mediterranean and connecting seas is no more than once in 100 years, with Italy and Greece likely to be worst affected. It would take a maximum of 60 minutes for a huge wave to reach the Mediterranean's beaches.
1/12/07 - OREGON - Emergency planners warn that Seaside residents might have to live for weeks without their usual supplies of food, water or shelter if the town is flooded by a tsunami. The city is hiring a tsunami-education coordinator to set up a volunteer emergency-response program and caches of supplies to meet the immediate needs of evacuated people. They are considering smaller dispersed caches with an assigned volunteer to distribute the emergency supplies, as opposed to a large warehouse-style cache. A larger cache may come later. The city also is working on new warning sirens, an automated phone system with emergency updates and instructions, an outreach program and subsidies for household weather radios.
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2006 -
12/31 - YEMEN issued a tsunami alert for areas located on its south-eastern coast after a powerful earthquake struck in the Gulf of Aden on Saturday. The alert was issued as a precautionary move and the possibility of a tsunami was small. An earthquake with magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale struck the Gulf of Aden Saturday, off the coast of southeast Yemen. There were no reports of casualties or damage. Earthquakes are rarely felt in Yemen, however a temblor in 1982 caused serious damage. INDONESIA - a list of some of the disasters, man-made and natural, to hit Indonesia since the Asian tsunami of 2004.
12/28 - INDONESIA - It has been two years since the tsunami washed over the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of its residents. Although the government made a lot of promises, and spent a lot of taxpayer�s money, very little actual relief and rehabilitation work has been done. Instead of ensuring that people are able to return to farming or fishing or trade, the islands� economy is being parcelled out to vested interests from the mainland. The environmental degradation is reaching crisis proportions. As people struggle to survive in hot, subhuman tin sheds, with no food security, electricity, education, basic health or livelihood, the terrible question comes back: where have all the massive aid and big promises disappeared? For how long will the central government hide the suffering of the tsunami survivors in India from the rest of the world? The government of India repeatedly promised the people that they would be given permanent housing, but apart from the model houses constructed for display, not a single house has been built for the 10,000 tsunami survivors! Two years after the tsunami, in many of the islands, the boats have yet to come, nets are yet to be distributed, jetties remain destroyed, and cold storages do not exist. There is fish in the sea but not for the tribals of the islands. There is no work or meaningful employment. People are still drinking from stagnant water pools and streams. They suffer all kinds of diseases as a result. In the middle of all this confusion, it appears that the minister for tourism is pushing for these pristine islands to be opened up for �high value� tourism. Forty islands that have a fragile ecosystem, particularly after the tsunami, are to be opened up for tourism. It is craftily packaged as eco-tourism. But for the vulnerable islands - this means doom.
12/26 - The biggest tsunami ever measured occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, on July 9, 1958. It was 1,720 feet high � that�s taller than any building in the world, almost 300 feet taller than the Sears Tower in Chicago, and about 350 feet taller than the World Trade Center in New York City was. The trigger was a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, but the tsunami itself was created by a landslide that followed the earthquake. �Big chunks of ice were falling off the face of (the glacier) and falling into the water,� said an observer who watched from a fishing boat. �They came off the glacier like a big load of rocks spilling out of a dump truck.� About 10 percent of tsunamis are created by landslides, often triggered by earthquakes but much harder to detect.
12/13 - MALAYSIA - Sea cucumber scare in Penang - Could a tsunami strike them again? That was the deep fear that struck Penang residents when they saw thousands of sea cucumbers on the beach two days ago. The residents of Pantai Pasir Panjang remember how thousands of fish washed ashore on the same beach several days before the December 26, 2004 tsunami catastrophe. Most of the more than 50 deaths in Malaysia due to the tsunami were reported at Pantai Pasir Panjang. The RARE phenomenon took place this time on the 11th as the thumb-sized creatures found their way onto the kilometre-long shore after midnight. And residents are worried that it could signal an impending tsunami. Last month, The Star reported something similar happening in Kuala Terengganu when thousands of sea cucumbers, also known as gamat, appeared on the Batu Buruk tourist beach. The deputy director of the Oceanography Institute described the phenomenon as 'VERY ODD' and said it could have been caused by strong sea undercurrents. 'This may be due to the imminent monsoon season, but I consider it a strange occurrence as it HAS NEVER OCCURRED HERE BEFORE.'
12/10 - BERMUDA - Panic gripped the island over tidal wave rumour - People running up hills; mothers snatching kids out of birthday parties and a police blockade were all the result of the panic spread by a tidal wave rumour. There was no definite pinpoint as to how the rumour got started. There were 18 to 24 waves crashing into Dockyard, which - according to the Bermuda Weather Service - are normal for this time of year. The high waves, in combination with low cloud cover on the horizon, gave an illusion of a long wall of water, and could be the root as to why there was panic that a tidal wave was heading towards the west end. 18-24 foot waves breaking on the north shore happens often during and after strong northerly winds in the winter. "It is apparent that this phenomenon has been misinterpreted by a member of the public as one large wave approaching the island."
12/7 - INDONESIA - Analyses of a classic, slow-rupturing tsunami earthquake whose massive waves devastated the coast of Java, Indonesia, this past summer, in July, are providing insight to seismologists and engineers, who want to better understand these rare events, recommend strategies to improve safety and perhaps provide long-range forecasts of potential danger zones worldwide. Among the surprises is data indicating that a secondary underwater movement amplified the original tsunami to create a wave run-up more than 60 feet high along more than a one-mile section of coastline. Data also raise the possibility that some regional geophysical characteristic may be making Java more vulnerable to tsunami earthquakes. Only about 0.1 percent of earthquakes of a 6.0 or larger magnitude on the Richter scale in the past 40 years have been classified as tsunami earthquakes.
12/5 - INDONESIA - Two Indonesian cities that escaped the devastating tsunamis of December 2004 are at risk of inundation over the next few decades from undersea earthquakes predicted along the coast of Sumatra, researchers say. The researchers, using computer models, produced simulations showing that a major earthquake could send a series of waves 15 to 20 feet high sweeping ashore around Padang or Bengkulu, coastal cities of 800,000 and 350,000 just south of the Equator on Sumatra�s Indian Ocean coast. Many seismologists say such quakes are inevitable off the coast near those cities.
11/29 - ITALY - Italian scientists say geological evidence suggests a giant tsunami resulted from the collapse of the eastern flanks of Mount Etna nearly 8,000 years ago. The volume of landslide material, combined with the force of the debris avalanche, would have generated a catastrophic tsunami, impacting the entire Eastern Mediterranean. Simulations show the resulting tsunami waves would have destabilized soft marine sediments across the floor of the Ionian Sea. The authors, noting field evidence for such destabilization can be seen in other studies, speculate such a tsunami might also have caused the abandonment of a Neolithic village in Israel.
11/28 - HAWAII - A hoax about a pending earthquake and tsunami triggered a storm of calls Sunday to civil defense, police and news organizations, and sent hundreds of Leeward O'ahu residents rushing for gas and supplies. "It appears to have been orchestrated and malicious." The concern was spurred by fast-spreading talk of a magnitude 9-plus earthquake that supposedly was to occur on the Big Island sometime between midnight and this morning, which would cause a large tsunami. Civil Defense officials said that Sunday's rumors were the worst, fastest-spreading rumors they have seen. Word began circulating as early as 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. on Sunday. The county mistakenly waited until 8 p.m. to call radio stations to quell the quake rumors. "If we had gotten on it earlier, I think, obviously we could have stopped them from spreading so far and fast on this island, and I hope next time we'll learn from this."
11/23 - NEW ZEALAND - Parts of the country have been hit by the Kuril quake tsunami. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research says the half metre wave was generated by the huge earthquake in the northern Pacific Ocean just over a week ago. Fourteen hours after the magnitude 8.3 quake, the initial wave reached the Chatham Islands and the Bay of Plenty, 9600 km from the site of the quake. Its journey across the Pacific was measured at an average speed of 685 km/hr. By comparison, a Boeing 737-300 travels at 790 km/hr. A couple of days later the wave was recorded at Timaru, Lyttelton and Kaikoura. The tsunami affected New Zealand over a three or four day period as waves bounced off undersea ridges such as the Chatham Rise, and moved to and fro along indented sections of the coast. If it had happened during a storm with very high tides it might have been a bit more of a nuisance, but as it was its effect was minimal.
11/15 -
A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR RUSSIA / JAPAN / MARCUS IS. / WAKE IS. / MIDWAY ISLANDS.
A Tsunami Warning is in effect which includes the Alaska coastal areas from Sand Point, Alaska to Attu, Alaska.
A Tsunami Watch is in effect for the Washington, British Columbia and Alaska coastal areas from Cape Flattery, Washington to Sand Point, Alaska. A small tsunami has hit northern Japan, estimated at 16 inches tall, Japan's Meteorological Agency said. A second tsunami, estimated at 8 inches, followed. The wave hit Nemuro port in Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido at 9:29 p.m. and was smaller than the 6 1/2 feet tall or higher initially expected by the agency. Live water footage from northern Japan showed calm seas and lighted windows. Residents said they barely felt the quake. The agency, however, warned larger waves could follow. Imagine a mega tsunami, a tidal wave 10 times bigger than the 2004 Indonesia event. A group of scientists from the US, Australia, Russia, France and Ireland have been working on a theory that such mega tsunamis may happen, not every half a million years as astronomers had predicted, but every couple of millennia. They say they're caused by meteor or asteroid impacts, which they believe have been much more frequent in earth's history than had been believed. There have been maybe 5 big comet impacts in the last 10,000 years near Australia. Tsunamis are generated, 95 per cent of them, by earthquakes, and existing deposits are higher up than what an earthquake tsunami could do around the Australian coastline. "There is a periodicity of about 2,500 years and the British astronomy group believe a larger comet came into the inner solar system about 15,000 years ago and broke up and the Earth passes through the debris trail of this comet. We tend to every 2,500 years pass through... close to the concentrated area of debris of this broken up comet and it's in a stream called the Taurids and the Taurids turn on in the end of June, you see a lot of meteorites there, small meteorites burning up in the sky. And it's quite common. The Earth passes through, annually, about 12 of these debris trails from different comets, broken up comets. One turns on about the third week of November, which is actually next week. The one 15,000 years ago was particularly big and its left a lot of debris and that is what we're passing through at regular periods giving rise, I think, to some of the comets... the impact craters that we're finding in the ocean."
10/15 - FIJI - With seismic activity reported to be increasing in the region, the National Disaster Management Center is now taking steps to improve the time in which a tsunami warning would be issued for the Fiji group.
10/12 - The last known tsunami to hit Europe was over 8,000 years ago. But new research reveals that there have been a number of deep-sea earthquakes since then, and that a landslide along the continental slopes could pose a serious risk to the cities and towns on the North Sea coast. It was a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions when an earthquake shook Norway's coast between Bergen and Trondheim about 8,150 years ago. The tremors ripped pieces of land the size of Iceland from shallow water and sent them crashing into the deep sea. Like a stone thrown into a pond, the landslide produced ripples of waves that spread at the speed of a train. Along the beaches of Scotland the waves were up to six meters (20 feet) high. Research has found that earthquakes in the seabed near Great Britain not only occurred more frequently in the past than had previously been thought (1089, 1508, 1607, 1686 and 1847), but that they were also stronger.
9/24 - INDIA - The risk of a tsunami, generated by an earthquake in the Arabian Sea along the Makran fault, is being taken seriously by the National Institute of Disaster Management. With Mumbai and the entire Gujarat coast at risk from such a tsunami, efforts are on to have an early warning system in place as soon as possible. An earthquake on the faultline which is just south of Pakistan could generate a tsunami that would hit Karachi almost immediately. The Gujarat coast may get a 15 minute warning, while in Mumbai, residents would get a warning an hour in advance. But what complicates matters, especially for Mumbai, is that the land is flat and waves may go inland a long way. The option of escaping by running to high ground would not be available. The last tsunami generated by an earthquake was on November 28, 1945, just off Balochistan. That caused tsunami waves as high as 11m in the Kutch region and hit Mumbai as well, causing 4,000 deaths. Although the existence of the faultline was known, the realisation of what it can lead to has only hit now.
9/18 - INDONESIA - The devastating tsunami not only caused widespread destruction along the country's east coast, it has also resulted in over-fishing in the Indian maritime. However, the phenomenon is not caused by damage to coastal flora and fauna in the 2004 tsunami aftermath, but due to measures taken to rehabilitate affected fishermen in the coastline. "A large number of fishing boats were provided to fishermen and consequently fishing along the coastline has recorded a significant rise since then." The area within 10 kms from the east coast is being over-exploited as far as fishing is concerned, because the fishermen are now equipped with better boats and fishing equipment.
9/8 - THE MEDITERRANEAN region � particularly the area around Greece � could be hit by a major tsunami before the end of the century, a scientist said. Because of the region�s tourism boom over the last five decades, the consequences would be devastating. A major tsunami occurs in the Mediterranean about every 136 years. The last one happened in the south Aegean sea in 1956, killing four people and causing shipwrecks and widespread coastal damage. An even worse tsunami, which hit the Sicilian city of Messina in 1908, killed 1,500 people. An additional 60,000 lost their lives because of the quake that triggered it. A Mediterranean tsunami would unlikely be as strong as the one that spread across the Indian Ocean region in December 2004, because the nature of the sea basin means it would not spread across the whole sea. Global statistics show about 10% of the world�s tsunamis occur in the Mediterranean. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and even landslides can cause huge waves that wreak havoc along coastlines. In 1979, at least a dozen people in the French resort of Nice drowned when an undersea landslide � attributed to the construction of a new airport � caused a tsunami.
8/31 - RUSSIA - 'Mini-tsunami' - A search operation continues at Dolzhanskaya Spit (Azov Sea Coast), where tourists were washed away by a surge the evening of the 29th. Dolzhanskaya Spit, which is one of the favorite resorts for residents of Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region, was inundated. According to witnesses, six people were washed away by the surge. Yeisk Search and Rescue Unit of the emergency ministry managed to find five missing tourists at about 02:00 a.m. One is still missing. Dozens of cars with non-official holiday-makers were evacuated from the spit. Eleven people and their cars remained at the spit, as they refused to move away. Ten life-guards and a boat were involved in the rescue operation. INDONESIA - Thousands of residents of the tiny islands of Tual and Langgur (Maluku province) abandoned their homes the night of the 29th for safer ground after a tsunami alert was issued. The population fled after an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale was registered off the coast of the Maluku Islands, eastern Indonesia, forcing the authorities to sound the alarm, which was eventually called off. People found refuge in the villages of Un and Kampung Raja and on Masbait Hill. A local governmental building is now used as a temporary shelter for panicked residents, but the picture of the situation on the two islands remains unclear due to poor communications. It is known though that residents still refuse to go home until they are certain that the tsunami danger is over.
8/21 - INDONESIA has recorded 186 destructive earthquakes hitting the country in the past 377 years, including 110 quakes that triggered tsunami. The 186 destructive quakes hit different areas in Indonesia from 1629 to 2005, with Sumatra ranking first by recording 45 quakes and 26 tsunami disasters and Maluku ranking second by registering 41 quakes and 33 tsunami disasters. Sumatra was more frequently hit by earthquakes, but Maluku was more severely devastated by the quakes as 80% of the 41 quakes jolting that region were followed by tsunami disasters.
8/3 - INDONESIA - It is over two weeks since a tsunami hit Java's southern coast, but some 10,000 people sheltering in camps are still refusing to go back to their fully intact houses. After the series of natural disasters in Indonesia, they are simply too scared to go home. Many admit they did not see the tsunami coming but almost everyone vows they heard it. �It roared, like a jet plane taking off.� While the death toll has approached nearly 700, estimates of the number of people whose homes have been destroyed ranges from 10,000 to 15,000. The tsunami destroyed 63 hotels, 163 stores, 162 restaurants and 600 street kiosks as well as 21 fish markets and close to 2,000 fishing boats. �So many disasters; tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes; one after another. What�s next?�
8/1 - RUSSIA - UNUSUAL SMALL TSUNAMI WAVE HIT KAMCHATKA - A tsunami warning issued because of a moderate quake and a mini tsunami off the eastern coast of Kamchatka has been lifted. Residents of the settlement of Krutoberegovo and Ust-Kamchatsk had received a warning and recommendations to stay away from the coastal zone on Sunday. Rescuers were put on alert in the Ust-Kamchatsk district and in the regional center etropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. An earthquake with a 4.4 magnitude on the Richter scale occurred 27 kilometers northeast of Krutoberegovo and 30 kilometers from Ust-Kamchatsk at 08:05 local time on Sunday. The water level was seen to recede in the Kamchatka River. Two hours after the quake, a wave up to two meters high hit the coast moving 15 meters deep. About 6,000 people live in that zone. Specialists note that the tsunami was an UNUSUAL occurrence. They believe the wave was NOT triggered by the quake. The mini tsunami could be triggered by �processes that occurred after the earthquake� or it could be an �underwater slide�. According to the head of the geophysics department, the sea is not deep in that area which makes tsunamis almost impossible there. Besides, no quakes capable of causing tsunamis were registered in the Pacific Ocean on that day. Specialists qualify the wave as a RARE occurrence. Such single waves may appear because of atmospheric events. However, no such meteorological conditions were fixed in the seas close to the peninsula on July 30.
7/26 - INDONESIA - Researchers have found that water resources in the tsunami-affected areas in Kerala are still severely affected almost two years after the disaster of December 2004. They found that wells contained an unusual saline character and taste. The low oxygen content dissolved in the ground water collected from wells indicated the slow deterioration of quality as a result of contamination. Wells that were de-watered and cleaned regularly were also found to retain the saltiness. Water Quality Index was also low in most of the areas that were hit by the crashing waves.
7/23 - INDONESIA - The death toll in the tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Java has risen to more than 650. Around 100 new bodies have been found in recent days. More than 300 people are still missing after Monday's disaster.
7/20 - Embarassed US scientists are revising earthquake analysis procedures after an inexperienced overnight team failed to quickly review the major earthquake that caused the tsunami which killed more than 550 in Indonesia. The United States Geological Survey typically provides very quick, accurate data on earthquakes worldwide, but on Monday took six hours before they gave the accurate 7.7 magnitude for the quake that hit 345km south of Jakarta. A scientist is supposed to review the automated findings manually within 10 minutes, but in the early morning hours between Sunday and Monday in Colorado that did not take place for an hour. It was six hours later when others started arriving during regular business hours that geologists calculated the Indonesia quake was actually a 7.7 - or three times larger in ground motion than a 7.2 and more than five times larger in terms of the amount of energy released.
7/19 - The death toll in the Indonesian tsunami rose to at least 340 yesterday, with more than 600 people injured, as rescue workers recovered bodies from coconut trees and the rubble of flattened homes. Many residents did not even feel the quake this time. As the sea receded, some escaped to higher ground. But others did not notice the warning sign, because the tide was already low. Alerts were issued by two regional monitoring centres but were not sent on to threatened communities, because the authorities did not want to cause unnecessary alarm. Indonesia has experienced a string of disasters since the 2004 tsunami, including an earthquake in May that claimed nearly 6,000 lives. Indonesians are calling their country "the disaster supermarket". INDONESIA has installed a tsunami warning system across much of Sumatra island but not on Java where the 6-foot-high tsunami struck. There were regional bulletins about the 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake, but they did not reach the nation's main island. A witness saw the ocean withdraw 500 yards from the beach a half-hour before the giant wave smashed to shore. "I could see fish jumping around on the ocean floor. Later I saw a wave like a black wall." Roads were blocked and power cut to much of the area. Damage and casualties were reported at several spots along the 110 miles of beach affected.
7/18 - INDONESIA - The death toll from a tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Java has risen to at least 245. About 450 people have been injured and 52,700 people have been displaced. Another 140 people are reported missing in the worst-hit area of Pangandaran. The tsunami was triggered by a 7.7 magnitude undersea earthquake that struck off Pangandaran on Monday afternoon, causing a 2m-high wave. At first light, rescuers were confronted with the sight of bodies in the branches of trees, and in the debris of smashed hotels and houses. One resident said high waves had destroyed hotels in Pangandaran and thrown boats onto the beach. Tremors from the earthquake were felt in the capital, Jakarta, for more than a minute, but there were no reports of damage or casualties there. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii had issued tsunami warnings for parts of Indonesia and Australia, and the Japan Meteorological Agency also warned of localised tsunamis. Police in Australia's Christmas Island reported a 60cm surge but no damage, while India authorities issued a tsunami warning for the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which are located west of Indonesia. But the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on its website that based on historical and current data, "a more widespread tsunami threat probably does not exist". Witnesses said "very many" flimsy homes along the coast for at least 20 miles in each direction had been destroyed as two waves, about seven metres (23ft) and two metres high, surged ashore. The water was reportedly waist-deep more than half a mile inland. Much damage was inflicted by hundreds of wooden fishing boats becoming battering rams as they ploughed through shacks and fields. Power failed and fixed phone lines were cut. Rescue teams said the toll was likely to rise significantly because they were still searching through rubble, many roads were impassable, many houses had been washed away and in pitch darkness it was difficult to see corpses. "We all felt the quake, but the first we knew of the tsunami was a roar. When we looked up, we saw fishing boats sort of jumping in the air out in the bay...Boats were going down the street. There were about six waves. The second was the biggest and the locals said it was as high as the point, I guess about four or five metres." Tsunami photos.
7/17 - Tsunami threat to Hawaii and West Coast underestimated - New evidence from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is causing civil defense modelers to reassess recommended evacuation zones and the hazards of multiple waves. These new analyses suggest that the tsunami threat to Hawaii, particularly the south shore of Oahu, and California may be much greater than previously calculated. Man-made developments along the shore slow the retreat of the flood caused by the first tsunami wave. Later waves then ride over the already-flooded area higher and faster (the multiple wave pile-up effect). As a result, recommended evacuation zones, particularly in areas with harbors and channels or rivers, would have to be expanded to account for larger waves coming in a series of increasing heights. Ironically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is relocating its Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to an island in the middle of Pearl Harbor on the south coast of Oahu, a location with a high tsunami danger.
6/15 - OREGON - Planners counting on the availability of Oregon's coastal airports to stage rescues and bring supplies following a major earthquake and tsunami nearby in the Pacific Ocean may want to think twice about such plans. Many of Oregon's coastal airports would be out of commission because of earthquake damage, tsunami inundation and debris, or lack of instrumentation for approaches, according to a survey done by Oregon State University. Research suggests that there have been 23 large earthquakes off the Pacific Northwest coast during the past 10,000 years. At least 16, and possibly 17, of those events have been full ruptures of the fault zone, requiring an earthquake of magnitude 8.5 or better. Such an earthquake likely would uproot highways, destroy bridges and render much of Oregon's Highway 101 unusable for days, or even weeks at a time.
6/12- HAWAII - A national advocacy group and some of the scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center are raising concerns over the facility's planned move to Pearl Harbor because it would be too close to sea level, putting it at greater risk of being hit by a powerful wave. "One does not have to be a geophysicist to question the wisdom of placing a key component of our tsunami warning system on a harbor island only a few feet above sea level. By putting the tsunami warning center on a harbor island, NOAA is tending its own bureaucratic turf at the expense of public safety." NOAA is expected to break ground in August on its $240 million regional campus on Ford Island, which will consolidate the agency's various offices across Oahu at one site by 2011. "Consolidating NOAA's operations in Hawaii "has a certain bureaucratic attractiveness, but from the point of view of readiness, it's asinine." Scientists at the tsunami center object to the move because of a host of operational and logistical problems and the possibly of nullifying much of the benefit from the $16.7 million currently being spent to upgrade its system.
6/6 - U.S. - A report Monday said state and federal governments need to bolster their planning for the possibility that a tsunami could strike the United States. The Government Accountability Office concluded that while modern technology is able to detect the formation of a tsunami fairly quickly, the United States lacks both a robust warning system and detailed knowledge on the impact a tidal wave could have on coastal areas. The United States has had 16 tsunami warnings since 1982. No waves were produced in those instances.
5/23 - MOROCCO - The National Meteorology Authority ruled out the idea that a Tsunami could hit the Atlantic ocean after the fall of fragments of a comet that will pass close to earth on May 25. This denial comes after the Ufological Research Center warned on its website of a Tsunami danger that would affect several countries, including Morocco. The comet will pass far away from planet earth at about 10 million kilometres, hence excluding any risk of a Tsunami in the Atlantic ocean. MONTSERRAT - �Following a collapse of the dome at the Soufri�re Hills Volcano in Montserrat in the early hours of Saturday, May 20, it has been reported that a tsunami has affected some coastal areas of Guadeloupe. There are unconfirmed reports that English Harbour and Jolly Harbour in Antigua have been affected.� Antigua, St. Kitts, and Nevis were advised to closely monitor the activities taking place in Montserrat. Guadeloupe reportedly had a tsunami 3 feet high and an unconfirmed report states that Antigua also experienced a possible tsunami ranging between 8 to 12 inches. The threat of tsunamis existed from the continuing pyroclastic flows of this eruptive event entering the sea. Now a memory, the volcano's dome has completely disintegrated and left a jagged scar where it once stood tall.
5/7 - TRINIDAD - The Seismic Research Unit of the University of the West Indies says there are no signs of an impending eruption of the underwater volcano in Grenada. The unit said it had been receiving "several inquiries regarding a supposedly impending earthquake and subsequent tsunami to affect Trinidad" and that there were "additional concerns as to the current status of the Kick 'em Jenny submarine volcano in Grenada". The unit said that "the potential for tsunamis from the volcano has also been raised". It said that its records "do not indicate any elevated activity of the Kick 'em Jenny volcano situated nine kilometres, north of Grenada."
5/4 - TONGA - Following the 8.1 quake, chances of a tsunami remain relatively high after such a tremor and so they�ll be monitoring the situation closely. "There is an almost 50 percent chance that could be another earthquake that could trigger a tsunami. We are watching the situation for the next 24 hours and if there's any after-shock warning, then we'll reinforce the warning."
4/18 - NOAA finished installation of five Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami buoy stations off the East and Gulf coasts and the Caribbean as part of the expansion of the U.S. tsunami warning system. The latest buoy station, off New Orleans, joins stations off Charleston, S.C.; Miami, and two off San Juan, Puerto Rico. "These buoys are a first line of defense in providing citizens of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf regions with a comprehensive tsunami warning system." NOAA expects the network to total 39 DART II buoy stations by 2008 (32 in the Pacific and seven in the Atlantic Basin). (map of the planned buoy locations). Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems, NOAA is working with its federal partners, 61 countries and the European Commission to develop a 'global network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects'.
4/4 - INDONESIA - Mangroves and other vegetation did not protect Asian coastal communities directly in the path of the December 2004 tsunami, according to a study released Monday, contradicting earlier reports claiming green belts helped save lives. The study also warned that governments in India and Sri Lanka are offering a false sense of security and displacing scores of residents unnecessarily by proposing green belts and buffer zones in areas hard hit by the massive waves. "It's a beautiful idea that green belts can stop a tsunami, and its aims are commendable. But it isn't true, and it won't work." "Our re-analysis revealed that the distance of a village from the coast and the height of the village above sea level explained 87 percent of the variation in mortality among villages. The apparent link between vegetation area and mortality was actually due to the fact that more vegetation grows at higher elevations above sea-level, and the greater the distance from the sea, the greater the area of vegetation."
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3/17 - INDONESIA - Three people are dead after waves as high as five metres (16.5 feet) swept away at least 116 village houses following Tuesday's 6.4 quake. Police in speedboats and villagers in wooden fishing boats were still searching for three missing children. The quake, which rocked several islands in the eastern Indonesian province of Maluku, also damaged hundreds of homes in five other villages on Buru island.
3/15 - PHILIPPINES - On Monday several areas turned into ghost towns after thousands of residents of three coastal towns fled the shorelines following rumors that they would be hit by a tsunami or tidal wave. Residents panicked as they sought higher ground to avoid the supposed tidal wave. Classes were also suspended. Residents blamed TV station GMA 7 for spreading the news. As of Tuesday evening no tsunami hit the area but the flight of people, especially those living along the shore, continued. Nasugbu's Mayor, who initially ordered the evacuation of his townmates to safer places, said he has already advised residents that the tsunami report was false. People have been advised to return to their homes but many families continue to leave the town. Earlier Tuesday the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology dispelled the tsunami rumors saying that no seismic activity which could have triggered such a phenomenon has been recorded near the shores of Batangas.
3/12 - THAILAND - Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center Saturday warned Phuket and other provinces in the country's southern Andaman Sea region to pay close attention to any earthquake in the Andaman Sea that may cause a tsunami. 31 earthquakes measuring from 4.0 to 5.3 on the Richter scale took place recently in two days on the seabed some 400-600 kilometers west of the Ranong coast. The quakes were at irregular intervals, but the epicenter is an undersea mountain which has probably resulted from a new undersea volcano. "If a huge explosion occurs, it could cause a new tsunami." The center urged residents to pay attention to earthquake and tsunami indicators, and to closely monitor earthquakes in the Andaman Sea. The authority also advised fishermen and other coastal and deepwater shipping in the region to take particular note of peculiar movements of ocean waves and the behavior of marine animals. The center urged those who notice the peculiar signs to immediate report through the center's hotline, or other local government agencies as soon as possible. However, Phuket authorities have not announced an evacuation or set off other alarms, as the intensity of the earthquakes at just over 5 on the Richter scale is not considered very dangerous. The new Tsunami alarm sounded by the Natural Disaster Warning Centre said, �In two days, there were 31 quake tremors. If the cause is the eruption of an underwater volcano, the risk of a Tsunami is very high.� From March 9 to 11 there were �UNUSUAL PHENOMENA� about 500km off Ranong Province. �There were 31 tremors measuring between 4 and 5.3 on the Richter scale. There would be one of three reasons for this: a new underwater volcano, the eruption of a volcano called Baren or the eruption of another volcano. In the last case, the risk of a seaquake is very high.� The Admiral of the Royal Navy put all his men on alert. All fishermen were invited to give �timely� reports to the centre and Navy personnel about any suspect phenomena. The National Disaster Warning Centre Saturday issued the urgent warning asking the people to monitor announcements from the centre constantly. It said the number of the quakes was irregular and the epicenter was at a fault where undersea mountains were located and sometimes lava had seeped out from the fault. The centre said the quakes might have been caused by the force of the lava which was pushing out through the fault or the moving of the fault. The centre added that the quakes also indicated that the Bahrain Volcano, which was about 110 kms away from the fault or 67kms from Thailand might explode in the future and affect Thailand. Fishermen were asked to watch out for possible signs of undersea volcano explosion, such as the change of sea colours and strange behaviours of sea animals and smelling of phosphorous and seeing bubbles coming up from the sea.
3/9 - JAPAN - the Wakayama prefectural government is building emergency tsunami evacuation towers. The evacuation towers aim to provide shelter for people in low-lying areas if tsunami tidal waves hit the coast. The feared Tonankai and Nankai earthquakes that could spawn tsunami are estimated to have at least a 50-percent possibility of hitting within 30 years. Starting in fiscal 2006, the prefecture will subsidize half of the construction expenses for local governments that decide to build the towers. The towers are three-legged steel structures supporting a platform. They range from 5 to 10 meters tall, and can hold 50 to 100 evacuees each. Kushimoto, in southernmost Honshu, has plans to build two towers by the end of March, at a cost of 30 million yen. Hiwasa in Tokushima Prefecture built a tower in December. Towers were built in Taiki and Shima, Mie Prefecture, in fiscal 1998 and fiscal 2003, respectively, and plans are under way to build towers at three to five more sites. HAWAII - While the five most severe tsunamis to hit here in the past 60 years have come from three areas � Chile, Russia's Kamchatka region, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands � Hawai'i is at risk from almost every point of the compass. Emergency preparedness officials maintain that no Hawaiian shoreline is safe from a tsunami. Tsunamis that have caused damage in the Islands in recent generations have come from the Aleutians (1946 and 1957), Kamchatka (1952), Chile (1960) and Alaska (1964), and from an earthquake near Kalapana on the Big Island (1975). A 1994 earthquake in Japan's Kuril Islands prompted a statewide coastal evacuation in Hawai'i, but the wave measured only a few inches locally.
3/6 - AUSTRALIA - more than 7 per cent of Australia's houses are in low-lying areas near the coast that would be vulnerable to a tsunami. The Gold Coast leads the list with more than 92,000 houses under threat. Brisbane was second. Coastal vulnerability is increasing as more people flock to the coast. The study follows a federal government report that warned the risk of a tsunami in the region was real. "Australia is surrounded ... by some 8000km of active tectonic plate boundaries capable of generating tsunamis."
3/3 - NEW ZEALAND - There is a call for the earthquake and tsunami hazard in the Bay of Plenty to be re-evaluated. The recommendation follows new research revealing a sharp rise in known offshore earthquake sources in the region. Scientists have identified 166 under-sea folds capable of generating earthquakes, compared to only 14 folds identified six years ago. The results mean the earthquake hazard in the central and eastern Bay of Plenty coastal region is greater than previously thought.
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2/26 - PHILIPPINES - Thousands of residents from coastal towns fled their homes and sought the safety of higher ground Thursday over a rumor that a tsunami was going to hit southern Negros Oriental Thursday night. The tsunami rumor started from a text message that circulated like wildfire after the intensity 7.8 earthquake struck in Africa Thursday morning. Police had already declared the text message as a fraud Thursday night, but there was no time to stop the evacuation.
2/21 - A film about the real-life threat of a tidal wave hitting London will begin shooting in the capital in the spring. The Flood tells the story of what would happen if the city's dam defences were breached and is based on research that suggests global warming could cause the Thames to rise to catastrophic levels. Last year, insurer Munich Re placed London at number nine in its top 10 of cities at serious risk from a natural disaster.
2/19 - NEW ZEALAND - Top-secret wartime experiments were conducted off the coast of Auckland to perfect a tidal wave bomb, declassified files reveal. An Auckland University professor seconded to the Army set off a series of underwater explosions triggering mini-tidal waves at Whangaparaoa in 1944 and 1945. if the project had been completed before the end of the war it could have played a role as effective as that of the atom bomb. Papers stamped "top secret" show the U.S. and British military were eager for Seal to be developed in the post-war years too. The experiments involved laying a pattern of explosives underwater to create a tsunami. The bomb was never tested on a full scale.
2/12/06 - What is the physical limit of the height of a tsunami? Just the right conditions to test the limit may have occurred on July 9, 1958, in Lituya Bay, within Glacier Bay National Park on Alaska's southeastern coast. The narrow bay was bounded on the east by a glacier and the steep face of a rock wall. When a magnitude 8 earthquake occurred, centered just 13 miles from the bay, not only was the floor of the bay lifted up about 3.5 feet and tilted, but a massive sheet of rock and ice also fell off the wall and into the water, creating a monstrous splash that initially reached a height of 1,720 feet - a third of a mile. Scientists who have studied the event liken the impact to that of an asteroid striking Earth. The tsunami continued on across the bay at a height of about 100 feet, swamping the few boats anchored in the bay and killing two people onboard. Miraculously, others survived, as the boats they were on rode out the wave.
1/22 - JAPAN - A major quake striking northeastern Japan could set off a 22-meter tsunami, kill nearly 3,000 people, destroy nearly 9,400 buildings and cause more than a trillion yen in damage, according to a worst-case government scenario.
1/20 - AMERICAN SAMOA - A United States research scientist is warning that two new undersea volcanoes near Manu�a in American Samoa may pose a future tsunami threat. In four years, the Nafanua volcano has grown 1,000 feet. Seismic activity may cause undersea landslides, resulting in a tsunami.
1/16 - NORTH CAROLINA - While it's true that North Carolina's chances of getting a tsunami are small, it's not out of the question. Long before recorded history, a tsunami hit North Carolina and created the Sandhills. "That's where all the sand came from." East Coast tsunamis are possible but rare - a roughly one in 100 year event. To date, no tsunamis have been recorded in the mid-Atlantic. The only tsunami ever recorded on the East Coast was in 1929 resulting from an earthquake in Newfoundland. "Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii have the greatest chance to get a tsunami, and they are likely to be about once in 25 to 35 years." There are several possible sources for a tsunami to hit North Carolina. One is the earthquake fault line near Puerto Rico, which would send a wave north up the Atlantic Ocean. Another potential source is the collapse of a volcano in the Azores in the north Atlantic. "In the best case, we would have five hours notice. In the worst case, (there's) no notice." The scenario that could cause the biggest tsunami would occur if a large meteorite struck the Atlantic. A big meteorite is the reason for the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say. If this scenario plays out, it would be devastating. "Nobody's going to survive, and there's not a lot we can do."
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2005 -
12/22 - WASHINGTON - Seattle is leading the way in tsunami research. Seattle now has what may be the world`s largest tsunami research center, with a goal of forecasting a major tsunami within 10 minutes of its development. So far the scientists have created real-time tsunami simulations that can be run in minutes for San Francisco, Port Los Angeles and Crescent City, California; Hilo, Hawaii; Kodiak, Alaska; Newport and Seaside in Oregon; Neah Bay and Willapa Bay in Washington. NEW ZEALAND - Reports show gaps in tsunami response. A year after killer waves swept across the Indian Ocean, New Zealand could also be hit without warning by a tsunami. New Zealand could be hit by a tsunami from Fiji within four hours of a surge, with little or no warning. Such a wave could hit the top of the North Island and spill down the east and west coasts. New Zealand is also vulnerable to tsunamis caused by earthquakes closer to shore, but these hit so quickly that there is little warning.
12/18 - AMERICA�S TSUNAMI: ARE WE NEXT? premiered December 18 on Discovery Channel. This is an original special revealing new geological evidence from a groundbreaking scientific expedition that confirms the cause of the December 26, 2004 Asian tsunami. Data collected from the expedition shows a striking similarity between the Indian Ocean fault zone and a fault zone lying just miles off the coast of northern California, Oregon and Washington. Some scientists predict a tsunami wave that is three times the height of what the northwest coast of the U.S. is prepared for.
12/14 - U.S WEST COAST - Seismologists are warning the US West Coast could be hit by a catastrophic tsunami, with waves as high as 100 feet or more. More than a million people in California live in areas that might be affected by a tsunami, and another million visit the state`s beaches on a typical summer day. There have been 80 tsunamis in California during the past 150 years, and geological records show previous waves reached heights of 60 feet or more.
12/7 - TSUNAMI - The first research expedition to directly observe the seafloor near the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has revealed unexpected results that will dramatically improve forecasting of future tsunamis. The research team found far fewer underwater landslides and generally less widespread disturbance of the seafloor than would have been expected given the size of the earthquake. �That might mean that we�re safer than we realize, because the material in that environment might be dissipating the seismic energy more than we thought.� The updated model was applied to a fault off the Oregon coast called Cascadia, which has been moving 6 centimeters per year since the last large earthquake occurred in the area in 1700 and where seismologists have long predicted another large earthquake, possibly up to 9.2 in magnitude, could occur. The refined model now predicts that an earthquake of that size could generate tsunami wave run-ups of up to 30 meters in some locations along the Pacific Northwest coast � almost three times higher than previously predicted � and significant waves could reach as far away as Japan and Russia. �Communities in Oregon and Washington have been anticipating waves of only 10 to 12 meters or so, but now they need to be even better prepared.�
11/24 - UN tsunami early warning systems are being extended to the Mediterranean and Northeast Atlantic. Although less frequent than in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and Northeast Atlantic region has a record of tsunamis associated with earthquakes, such as the 1908 calamity in the Sicilian port of Messina that killed 85,000 and the 1755 quake and tsunami that destroyed Lisbon, killing thousands. Planning is also underway for a warning system in the Caribbean. U.S. - The next potential tsunami target is the northwest region of the United States (northern California and coastal areas of Oregon and Washington) because its fault lines are a mirror image of those in the Indian Ocean subduction zone, with potential waves as high as 90 feet. Scientists estimate that tsunami events happen every 200 to 400 years on the West Coast - the last occurred on January 26, 1700 - and the fault line is located just 50 miles off the coast along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. New geological evidence shows that seafloor uplift from the 9.2 magnitude Great Sumatra earthquake - not a giant underwater landslide as previously thought - caused the devastating December 26, 2004, Asian tsunami. OREGON - Waldport's three tsunami warning sirens went off Friday and were heard all over town for about three minutes, starting at approximately 12:08 p.m. There was no tsunami warning given by the federal Tsunami Warning Center, and no one knows just why or how the sirens were activated. Only a few people treated the siren as a signal to evacuate; many more either called city hall or the fire department to inquire what was happening, or ignored the sirens' loud warning sound entirely. The sirens went off at virtually the same time they do on Mondays during their regular testing, but they stayed on for about three minutes, while the normal test is for 30 seconds.
11/14 - The odds against an ocean-wide tsunami in the next 70 years are only two to one, an expert has said. The devastating event would be caused by a submarine earthquake - like last year's in the Indian Ocean - and based on one of a number of fault lines. "The odds on another tsunami are probably even shorter than two to one, because we had one in Chile in 1960, Alaska in 1964 and Sumatra last year, so that's three in 44 years." The chances of an earthquake with worldwide economic effects, most likely based in Tokyo, are only three to one. The last major one in Tokyo was in 1923, which killed 200,000. The next one there is expected to kill 60,000 people, and cost somewhere up to US $3.3 trillion. Other odds include a climate-altering volcanic eruption at 14 to one, an ocean-wide megatsunami due to an ocean island or submarine landslide (most likely at La Palma in the Canary Islands) at 143 to one, and an asteroid impact (larger than one kilometre) at 8,570 to one.
The U.S. West Coast is being urged to get ready for a great quake. Experts told Congress that there is a one-in-five chance of a cataclysmic earthquake occurring off the West Coast in the next 50 years. It would send a 45-foot tsunami crashing into the West Coast in as little as 15 minutes. Damage to roads and bridges would render the emergency response nearly impossible. Tsunami threaten even landlocked Switzerland. An avalanche or a rockfall in the wrong place could generate a giant wave. While this has never happened in the Swiss Alps, an underwater earthquake in Lake Lucerne 400 years ago triggered huge waves which left the city of Lucerne under water. And nearly 40 years ago, a huge landslide into an Italian dam reservoir created a wave that killed around 2,500 people.
Despite a history of tsunamis, Mexico's earthquake-prone Pacific coast and its spectacular beach resorts are ill-prepared for a wave near the scale of last month's Indian Ocean tsunami, experts say. Scientists fear Guerrero state, home to the massive tourist resort of Acapulco, is long overdue for an earthquake.
Alaskans shouldn't be lulled by the existence of high-seas buoys in the Pacific Ocean into thinking they are much better protected from danger than residents of Banda Aceh in Indonesia, according to earthquake and tsunami experts there. Three of the six bouys currently deployed have been out of service for a year. The buoys are deployed to warn the rest of the Pacific Rim about tsunamis generated by earthquakes in unstable Alaska. An Alaska-generated wave would probably hit the shore there BEFORE it reaches the first buoy heading south. The western Aleutian buoy is currently out of service, as is the buoy off Unalaska and one other off the Oregon coast.
Aboriginals who live in the villages that dot the rugged, west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada believe one day they'll face an earthquake and tidal wave similar in destructive force to the quake and tsunami that hit southeast Asia. Three hundred years ago, on Jan. 26, 1700, they did have a massive tsunami caused by a magnitude nine earthquake. It will happen again say both aboriginals and scientists.
Countries in the Caribbean region are facing real threats of major earthquakes and tsunamis, U.S. scientists said Wednesday. With nearly 20 million people now living in this tourist region and a major earthquake occurring on average every 50 years, scientists say it is not a question of if it will happen but when. The most recent major earthquake, a magnitude 8.1 on Richter scale in 1946, resulted in a tsunami that killed a reported 1,600 people. Each time an earthquake occurs on the offshore Puerto Rico and Hispaniola trenches, it adds stress to the Septentrional fault zone on Hispaniola.
Lopevi volcano in Malampa, Vanuatu, which is active and last erupted violently in June 2003, may be a time bomb waiting to go off that could result in a tsunami if the island collapses into the sea, devastating nearby islands. Volcanic crises reported since 1863 appear to have occurred in cycles of 15 - 20 years. Since 1998, the Lopevi volcanic activity has significantly increased with frequent strombolian to vulcanian eruptions. Moreover the renewal of activity since 1998 is the precondition for future slope collapses forming debris avalanches. No scientific equipment is permanently installed on this volcano.
