Tsunami News & Photos

mauts daughter

The information concering this major earthquake was available to almost everyone within minutes of it happening, but no information was available to say it had triggered a tsunami.

I agree mag 9 is a very large and rare event, but if you look at the map posted as the large image on this thread (post 363) you will note a very large Earthquake South West of New Zealand that was I think 8.4, that did not trigger a tsunami, so just because you have a large quake it is not safe to assume that a tsunami will take place as well. The fact is you can get tsunami triggered by small eartquakes as well, but it would be equally crazy to assume that all small quakes are going to trigger a tsunami. To determine a tsunami risk you need to look at other criteria such as seafloor stability in the vacinity of the earthquake, how deep the quake is, how it relates to the adjacent land, if any.

If I told you that the North Sea was at high risk of a tsunami, you would probably laugh, but scientists are concerned enough to have done studies into the stability of the sea floor off Norway. Think of the impact a tsunami would have on the Netherlands.

What I am saying is all the government scientist would have known about the big earthquake when it happened, but they would have had no reason for reporting it as the records would have not shown any signs of a tsunami. It's a different story if the government had info from Andaman and Nicobar that a tsunami had hit, as it would have been obvious that a wave was on it's way, but I don't think the government would have had time to do anything about it, and as tsunami are so rare the residents probably would not have known what the warning was about.