Deadly quake sent waves as far as Americas
By: JANIS L. MAGIN - Associated Press Writer | ∞
HONOLULU (AP) -- The earthquake-driven tidal wave that devastated coastlines from Asia to Africa registered in the Pacific Ocean as far away as the United States and the coast of South America, experts said Monday.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck near Indonesia generated tsunamis that killed more than 22,000 in 10 countries as it spread west and north across the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.
But the energy generated by the deep ocean waves also traveled to the Pacific, said Stuart Weinstein, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on Oahu.
"We recorded tsunami waves along the coast of South America, on the coast of American Samoa, in Fiji, even Mexico, and the west coast of the United States," Weinstein said.
"It's been a multi-ocean tsunami," he added. "It's probably the first multi-ocean tsunami since Krakatoa."
The eruption of the volcano on the island of Krakatau on Aug. 27, 1883, generated a massive wave that swept over the shores of nearby Java and Sumatra, killing 36,000 people.
Other experts said this weekend's tidal waves were similar to those that struck the West Coast centuries ago. On Jan. 26, 1700, an earthquake of approximately magnitude 9.0 buckled the ocean floor from Vancouver Island to Northern California, setting off a tsunami that swamped the coast and washed away houses in Japan.
The tsunami warning center issued a tsunami warning bulletin over the weekend and tried to warn the countries in the path of the tidal waves, but lacked the right contact numbers. There is no tsunami warning center for the Indian Ocean.
"They were not plugged into this international effort to monitor tsunamis," Arun Swamy, a fellow at the East-West Center who specializes in South Asian politics, told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. "There was certainly a lot of time. It would have been easy to evacuate people. But no one knew ... to prepare for it."
The Pacific has an underwater tsunami-detection system of six buoys nestled strategically on the ocean floor at depths of up to 18,000 feet. Three of the devices are off the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, one is off Vancouver, British Columbia, one is off Oregon and one is between Hawaii and Chile.
The gauges on the ocean bottom are linked to buoys on the sea surface, which transmit date to a satellite, said Gerard Fryer, a University of Hawaii geophysicist who is also the adviser to the Hawaii Department of Civil Defense.
Two of the three sensors off the Aleutians are currently not working because the surface buoys, which are battered by the rough winter seas, need to be replaced, he said.
"When they work, they're wonderful, they're very very sensitive," Fryer said.
A seventh sensor is being planned for somewhere off the Hawaiian Islands, but the location hasn't been chosen yet, he said.
On the Net:
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc
West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center: http://wcatwc.gov
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