Third in series: Tsunami warnings improved since Great Alaska Earthquake [View all]

[Blue_In_AK]

but unlikely to help those closest.


http://www.adn.com/2014/03/24/3391997/terror-of-tsunamis-warning-systems.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center puts the total number of deaths resulting from the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 at 139. Fifteen of those deaths are attributed to falling buildings or crumbling ground during the quake itself.

The rest were killed by water.

Thirty-two people died when a wave 30 feet high boiled up in Port Valdez. Similar sized waves took 12 lives in Seward and 15 in Kodiak and its surrounding villages. Another dozen perished when a wall of water 40 feet high smashed into Whittier. In the Prince William Sound village of Chenega, a third of the population -- 23 people -- was swept away by a 90-foot wave.

Smaller numbers of casualties were reported in scattered settlements across the region, from Cape St. Elias to Port Nellie Juan. One death took place at Shoup Bay on Valdez Arm, where the wave may have splashed 220 feet up the Chugach mountains.

In many places, the ground was still shaking as the water hit.

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Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2014/03/24/3391997/terror-of-tsunamis-warning-systems.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy