The possibility of a mega tsunami in Hawaii does not seem to be pulled by the hair, if we consider that most of these catastrophes occur precisely in the Pacific Ocean, and that in the last 12 years we have had at least 3 big tsunamis : the one from Malaysia in 2004, the one from Chile in 2010 and the one from Japan in 2011.
Will there be a Mega Tsunami in Hawaii?
If you are a reader from Science Daily Online and you live in Hawaii do not panic, apparently the possibility that a mega tsunami hits the Hawaiian archipelago in the next 50 years is only 3%, and this information is derived from a study of 5 years by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM), which began just shortly after the 9.0 earthquake that shook Japan in 2011, and was followed by an even more devastating tsunami.
The Investi gators evaluated the behavior of the different plates and tectonic faults that cause earthquakes and tsunamis in the Pacific, as well as the behavior of some large tsunamis caused by 9.0ยบ earthquakes, such as that of 1950 in Kamchatka, that of 1960 in Chile, that of 1964 in Alaska, that of Sumatra in 2004 and that of Tohoku in 2011; and concluded that an earthquake of that magnitude in the Aleutian Islands (Alaska), which could well occur in the next 50 years, could generate a mega tsunami, a super wave that could reach the coast of Hawaii with a height of about 10 meters , causing about 300,000 victims and damages estimated at about 40,000 million dollars .
With no historical data on tsunamis in Hawaii, researchers at the School of Oceanography , Earth Sciences and Technology of the UHM, coordinated by the geophysicist Rhett Butler, developed a numerical model with the existing geological and seismological data and could even predict where the greatest damage would occur in an event of this class.
A sign that this study is well under way is that the model indicates that one of the places affected would be the coast of Kauai, and right there, at the archaeological site of Makauwaki , they found evidence of the impact of a tsunami with waves of 10 meters that should have happened 500 years ago .In this regard, Butler notes:
“We were surprised and delighted at how well the current model fit the effects of paleotsunami.”
The results of this research, in which Scientists from the University of Portland also participated, they are already being used by the Civil Defense of the State of Hawaii to modify and make more efficient the plans for disaster management , and could serve as a model of similar studies in other regions of the world that may be impacted by a tsunami.
If you are interested in the topic, we recommend you Next tsunami: Switzerland ?, Tsunamis in the Mediterranean and Threatens a megatsunami?
Images: Lindley Ashline, Denis Dore, Masakazu Matsumoto
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