A Deadly Wave - Papua New Guinea hit by huge tsunami in 1998 - Brief Article

IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA'S north-western province of Saundaun, four villages had rested peacefully on a thin spit of sand between the Sissano Lagoon and the Pacific Ocean. Then, on July 17, a magnitude 7.1 quake rattled the villages of Arop, Warapu, Malol, and Sissano.

Five or ten minutes later a wall of water 40 feet high at some points slammed into the spit, engulfing the villages. Almost instantly, Arop and Warapu, each home to 2,500 people, were gone; half of Malol and two-thirds of Sissano were also destroyed. Official tallies say the tsunami, the world's worst in more than two decades, killed 2,134 people, the majority of whom were children. Unofficially, experts estimate that up to 3,000 people perished, with the bodies of many of the missing carried into crocodile-infested mangrove swamps nearby.

The earthquake occurred 15 miles offshore and generated water current speeds averaging 22 miles an hour, although the currents may have peaked at twice that. (Water currents carry 1,000 times the force of a wind of the same speed.) The killer wave inundated a 25-mile strip of coastline, which is, according to geophysicist Eric Geist of the United States Geological Survey, consistent with a 7.1 earthquake. "With larger earthquakes, magnitude 8 and up, you have a much more widespread distribution of run-up--hundreds of kilometers."

The USGS offered some tsunami emergency training to the Papuans after the disaster, but the harsh fact is that advance notice of tsunamis in their part of the world is next to impossible. There are hardly any seismometers set up in the area of New Guinea, and they would provide only a few minutes' warning. For now, the most reliable clue is the sudden outrush of water from the shore shortly before a tsunami hits. If you can see the wave coming, it's too late to escape.

The fate of Arop, Warapu, Malol, and Sissano should be disquieting to residents of the West Coast of the United States. A Pacific earthquake could easily send a tsunami their way as well. If they were lucky and the quake was distant, they'd have a couple of hours' warning. But if the quake were closer to shore, they might not know what was happening until they saw the wave looming overhead.

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