High risk of major tsunami in northern Caribbean
Friday, March 18, 2005
WASHINGTON, USA: The potential for
devastating tsunamis in the northern Caribbean is high, say marine scientists,
based on their analysis of historical data since the arrival of Columbus.
Several natural phenomena could trigger
giant tsunamis, they say, with effects felt in the islands of the Greater and
Lesser Antilles and along the east and Gulf coasts of the United States.
Nancy Grindlay and Meghan Hearne of the
University of North Carolina Wilmington and Paul Mann of the University of
Texas at Austin focus on one major source of past tsunamis in the region:
movement along the boundary between the North American and Caribbean tectonic
plates.
Writing in the March 22 issue of Eos, the
newspaper of the American Geophysical Union, they say that at least 10
significant tsunamis have been documented in the northern Caribbean since
1492, six of which are known to have resulted in loss of life.
All 10 were triggered by movement along this
plate boundary, which lies along the north coast of Hispaniola (Haiti and the
Dominican Republic) and extends some 3,200 kilometers [2,000 miles] from
Central America to the Lesser Antilles.
Previous tsunamis destroyed Port Royal,
Jamaica, in 1692, killed at least 10 Jamaicans on the island's south coast in
1780, and ravaged the north coast of Hispaniola and the Virgin Islands in
1842. The most recent of the destructive northern Caribbean tsunami occurred
in 1946 and was triggered by a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in the Dominican
Republic. It killed around 1,800 people.
The researchers estimate that with increased
populations, especially in coastal areas, some 35.5 million people are now at
risk should another strong tsunami hit the northern Caribbean.
They note that in addition to their own
studies of fault lines along the North American and Caribbean plate boundary,
other researchers have studied the risk to the northern Caribbean from
submarine landslides, both in the region and as far away as the Canary
Islands.
In the pre-1492 period, tsunamis greater
than any in the past 500 years may have occurred, the scientists say, based on
their study of underwater landslides off the north coast of Puerto Rico.
Grindlay and her colleagues are planning to
visit the region later this month to investigate possible linkages between
groundwater flow from Puerto Rico and underwater seeps in areas where land has
subsided. Such flows, or fluxes, could contribute to small landslides that
might trigger tsunamis. In the future, they hope to drill into the ocean bed
to determine when and how often land had collapsed in the prehistoric era.
"The recent devastating tsunami in the
Indian Ocean has raised public awareness of tsunami hazard and the need for
early warning systems in high-risk areas such as the Caribbean," Grindlay said
in a statement. "An Intra-Americas Sea Tsunami Warning Project proposal has
been approved by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, and meetings
to plan implementation are scheduled for this spring and summer."
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