Even with a sophisticated, high-tech warning system, some tsunami experts worry that Hawai’i and other Pacific lands might not be on their toes enough when another killer wave comes along. A case in point is the tsunami from a powerful
Even with a sophisticated, high-tech warning system, some tsunami experts worry
that Hawai’i and other Pacific lands might not be on their toes enough when
another killer wave comes along.
A case in point is the tsunami from a
powerful earthquake that shook Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on April 1, 1946 and
raced across the Pacific, killing 159 Hawaiians and eight other people in
Alaska, California and French Polynesia. In studying that cataclysm 54 years
later, University of Hawai’i researchers are coming to the conclusion that the
size of future tsunamis could be underestimated. And that could lead to inexact
warnings that fail to get people out of harm’s way.
Hopefully, the UH study
will help save lives when – not if, as researchers emphasize – the next tsunami
strikes.
