Introduction - Tsunami - page 12

Table 1.3 Occurrence of significant tsunami in the Pacific Region documented since 47 BC

Date Source H rmax (m) Other area affected

26 January 1700 Washington State Unknown Japan

8 July 1730 Concepción, Chile Unknown Japan

7 November 1837 Southern Chile 8.0 Hawaii

9 July 1854 North Kuril Islands Unknown Japan

13 August 1868 Arica, Chile 21.0 Pacific-wide

20 January 1878 Aleutian Islands 3.0 Hawaii

10 May 1877 Arica, Chile 24.0 Pacific-wide

31 January 1906 Ecuador 5.0 East Pacific

17 August 1906 Chile 3.6 Pacific-wide

15 August 1918 Celeves Sea 12.0 Philippines

7 September 1918 South Kuril Islands 12.0 Northwest Pacific

11 November 1922 Atacama, Chile 12.0 Pacific-wide

3 February 1923 Kamchatka Peninsula 8.0 Hawaii

2 March 1933 Sanriku, Japan 29.3 Hawaii

1 August 1940 West Hokkaido, Japan 3.5 Northwest Pacific

1 April 1946 Unimak Is. Alaska 35.0 Pacific-wide

4 November 1952 Kamchatka Peninsula 20.0 Northwest Pacific

9 March 1957 Aleutian Islands 16.2 Northern Pacific

6 November 1958 Southj Kuril Islands 5.0 Japan

22 May 1960 South Chile 25.0 Pacific-wide

20 November 1960 Peru 9.0 Japan

28 March 1964 Alaska 67.1 Northern Pacific

4 February 1965 Aleutian 10.7 Northern Pacific

11 August 1968 SE Hokkaido, Japan 5.0 former U.S.S.R.

10 June 1975 Kuril Islands 5.5 Hokkaido Japan

3 March 1985 Central Chile 3.5 Pacific-wide

17 July 1998 Papua New Guinea 15.0 Local

1 April 2007 Solomon Islands 12.1 Local

29 September 2009 Samoa 22.4 Local

27 February 2010 South Chile 29.0 Southern Pacific

11 March 2011 Sanriku, Japan 38.9 Local

Note One event may be recorded at more than one location
Source Based on Lockridge ( 1988 ), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission ( 1999a , b ), National Geophysical Data Center ( 2013 )

more detail in Chap. 5 . Eleven tsunami have struck Fiji in
the 100-year period 1877-1977, averaging one tsunami
every 10 years. Tsunami are a more frequent hazard here
than tropical cyclones. Many small islands in the South
Pacific are vulnerable to tsunami because populations are
concentrated around coastlines (Løvholt et al. 2012 ).
The known number of deaths attributable to tsunami in
the Pacific and Indonesian regions is tabulated in Table 1.4
(Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission 1999a ;
United Nations 2006 ; National Geophysical Data Center
2013 ) for each of the main causes of tsunami, while the
events with the largest, known death tolls—including the
Indian Ocean event of 2004 and the T ¯hoku Tsunami of

2011—are presented in Table 1.5 (Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission 1999a ; National Geophysical
Data Center 2013 ). Over the past 2000 years there have
been 716,548 known deaths attributed to tsunami in these
two oceans. Earthquake-generated tsunami account for the
greatest death toll, 90.0 %, with volcanic eruptions
accounting for 7.2 %—mainly during two events, the
Krakatau eruption of August 26-27, 1883 (36,417 deaths)
and the Unzen, Japan, eruption of May 21, 1792 (14,524
deaths). Before the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, the
number of fatalities was decreasing over time and
was concentrated in southeastern Asia, including Japan.
The biggest tsunami of the 20th century occurred in Moro