Introduction - Tsunami - page 6

1.2.5 Papua New Guinea, July 17, 1998

yelled, ''Look,'' and pointed to the ocean. Ita strained to
view the horizon in the twilight. A thousand lights from
phosphorescence began to sparkle in the water, which had
now retreated several hundred meters from shore. Then she
noticed that the horizon was moving; it was getting higher
and higher. Abruptly a second earthquake jolted her. This
time it rolled in from the southeast. As she turned and
looked east along the coast, she saw a large wave break-
ing—not really breaking, but frothing and sparkling.
Everyone instantaneously began yelling ''Run,'' but the roar
of the wave cut off the shouts. Like a jet plane landing, it
engulfed the night. Ita turned, grabbed her two babies
beside her, raced the few steps to the canoe, and jumped in.
Before the wave hit with a thud, a blast of air knocked her
flat to the bottom. The canoe was tossed several meters into
the air and then flung like a surfboard into the lagoon and
across to the swamp on the other side. At Sissano, Warapu,
Malol, Arop, and half dozen villages all along the Aitape
coast, the scene was the same. A 10-15 m high tsunami
swamped the coast. At some places the wave raced along
the shore; at others it just reared from the ocean and ran
straight inland through buildings faster than people could
run. Everywhere, people were knocked into trees behind the
beach or flushed into the lagoon.
It was now night. One could only hear the noise of the
wave as it crossed Sissano lagoon and the screams of people
as they gasped for air or tried to swim in the turbulent water.
A putrid odor filled the air. In all, three waves swept one on
top of the other across the coast. From the beginning of the
first earthquake to the last wave, it was all over within half
an hour. The villages were gone; debris was everywhere. As
a surreal mist rose from the lagoon and crept into the silent
swamps, the feeble cries of survivors, grunts of foraging
pigs, and isolated barks from hungry dogs looking for an
evening meal were the only sounds of songs to be heard
along the Aitape coast that night.
In all 2,202 people died, 1,000 were injured, and 10,000
were made homeless (Davies et al. 2003 ). Many of the dead
died from their injuries as they clung to trees in the
impenetrable mangrove forest on the other side of the
lagoon, waiting days for rescue, on a remote coastline
thousands of kilometers from nowhere. Ita? She survived.
Her canoe was caught in the mangrove. After two days she
was rescued with her two babies and reunited with an
overjoyed husband.

It was a perfect tropical evening along the Aitape coast of
Papua New Guinea. Here on the narrow sand barrier that ran
for 3 km in front of Sissano lagoon, life was paradise—sago
trees, coconut groves, white beaches, and the ever-present
emerald waters of the Bismarck Sea. It was the dry season,
and as the sun set, people in the villages were busying
themselves preparing their evening meals (Davies 1998 ).
The men had a good day fishing in the ocean; the women,
good returns from their nets set in Sissano lagoon. Children
and young people, many who had come home from Port
Moresby for the school holidays, played along the beach. Ita
glanced at her watch. It was ten to seven—still plenty of time
before the sing-sing. She glanced at her two babies who were
lying beside her and smiled. These holiday periods when all
the children were home were the happiest of times.
She bent over to check her cooking, and that is when she
first noticed the earthquake. The water in the pot began to
shimmer. Then the ground began to roll. It came in from the
north, from the sea. Everyone in the village froze in their
tracks. The region often experienced earthquakes but they
were always small. How big was this one going to be? Ten
seconds, thirty seconds, a minute, two. Then the shaking
stopped. Ita looked around. She lived at the back of the
lagoon, only 75 m from the ocean. She saw some of the
older people gathering around a cluster of buildings closer
to the sea. They were talking frantically. She would never
forget the look on their faces; it was one of sheer panic.
Some of the younger men joined the group. One old man
began pointing at the ocean. He was yelling, and Ita could
just catch his words. He talked about ''leaving the village,''
''the wave was coming,'' and ''everyone must run.'' She
thought how foolish. The village was on a barrier between
the ocean and the lagoon. There was nowhere to run. One of
the young men in the group put his arm around the old
man's shoulders, smiled, and then began to laugh—not at
him, not with him, but in that reassuring way that went with
the nonchalant attitude of a people comfortable with a
relaxed, carefree lifestyle.
Ita heard a rumbling like thunder, and as she glanced
through the trees to the ocean, she noticed that the tide was
going out, further than she could remember (Davies et al.
2003 ). By now, some of the children had run up from the
beach. One of them said that they had seen the ocean splash
tens of meters into the air on the horizon just after the
ground shock. They were now asking their parents to come
down to the beach. It was full of cracks. Within minutes,
everyone was talking about the earthquake. It had not been
a big one. The houses built on stilts were still standing.
Some people had wandered down to the beach; but the older
people were more distraught than ever. Then someone

1.3 Scientific Fact or Legends?

All of these stories have elements of truth, yet only two are
reliable—those of Krakatau and the Burin Peninsula. The
description of the tsunami generated by the eruption of