On July 17, 1998 at 6:49 local time, an earthquake struck the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The quake was not, in itself, extraordinarily strong. However, a series of three tsunamis swept the coastline and proved to be devastating. Two thousand, two hundred people were killed. Ten thousand were left homeless. Richard Monastersky of Science News described this particular tsunami as a “plateau of water, averaging 10m (32.8 ft) high and extending 4 to 5 kilometers (2.5 to 3.1 miles) from front to back.”
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| Here is a map of the area in danger |
The earthquake measured a 7.1 on the Richter scale. This is not an uncommon event, but the tsunamis that followed were. The worst damage occurred in the area of Sissano Lagoon, an inland body of water whose presence blocked villagers from fleeing from the incoming waves. The tsunamis wiped the shoreline clean and left no evidence of the fishing villages that once existed there.
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| The unfortunate aftermath |
The earthquake struck so quickly, and the tsunamis were so unexpected, that there was little way to prepare for a disaster of that magnitude. The devastation that Papua New Guinea experienced was not because it was a poor country that lacked resources. No society could protect itself against waves the size of a four-story building.
A hydrodynamic engineer, Costas Synolakis, believes that the size of the quake did not explain the devastation of the tsunamis. He speculated that an underwater landslide created the force behind the waves. If this is true, the American West Coast could also be in danger. The west coast of North America is also laced with small coastal faults capable of producing moderate quakes and underwater slides. A closer examination of these faults is going to be necessary to prevent another disaster.
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| The area was in shambles |
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