Experts identify the giant tsunami that decimated coastal communities for 1,000 years

A massive earthquake triggered a giant tsunami that caused so much devastation to coastal dwellers that it took at least 1,000 years for them to return to life on shore.

Geologists and archaeologists who say we need to learn lessons from the past earthquake fear that modern authorities haven’t considered how bad the next earthquake will be, and should adapt their plans accordingly.

They found that life changed drastically 3,800 years ago when devastating earthquakes and tsunamis struck northern Chile, possibly surpassing the strongest earthquake recorded to date.

The most powerful seismic event known to science is the 1960 earthquake that struck the town of Lomaco, near the city of Valdivia, which is located about 744 kilometers from Santiago, the capital of Chile. The earthquake scored from 9.4 to 9.6 on the earthquake intensity scale.

The earthquake and resulting tsunami caused thousands of deaths and compensation amounting to $3.5 billion to $7 billion, adjusted for inflation.

Ships and sailors were lost, Valdivia was devastated, and farmland in some areas sank at least two meters away, becoming permanently submerged.

The resulting waves up to 10.5 meters (34.4 ft) in height hit Hawaii, China, Japan and the Philippines.

But an interdisciplinary study in the journal Science Advances notes that a similar earthquake occurred not far away, in northern Chile, but thousands of years ago, with a magnitude of 9.5.

Co-authors Diego Salazar, Gabriel Easton and James Goff found that the ancient earthquake was a killer that drove people inside, where they stayed for 1,000 years.

The stone walls of ancient dwellings in Chile were destroyed and found under tsunami deposits.

Some of the walls collapsed towards the ocean, possibly due to the destructive reverse wave.

Samples of shells, marine life and marine rock washed inland in Chile were found on land located four to seven meters above current sea level.

Half a world away, in New Zealand, a giant wave from an ancient earthquake threw car-sized boulders hundreds of meters into land.

“Its composition cannot be explained by global changes in sea level,” Easton said. He added that ancient clashes between the Nazca and the South American tectonic plates caused this.

People in Chile have learned to live with some seismic events, but will be shocked by the ancient devastation discovered by geologists and archaeologists.

An international team led by Chilean researchers with a Spanish presence published their discovery of a life-altering massive earthquake in the Atacama Desert 3,800 years ago in Science Advances on April 6. Departamento de Geologia – Universidad de Chile / Zenger

The authors note that there is evidence “of a massive earthquake in the past, which modified settlement and land contact by ancient coastal communities in the north of the country”.

Changing plate tectonics and a 3,800-year-old tsunami pushed waves 15 to 20 meters (50 to 65 feet) above sea level in parts of Antofagasta, Atacama and Tarapaca, on the coast north of Santiago.

Tectonic plates are huge chunks of Earth’s surface that rub together, rupture and cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

The longer the rupture, the greater the earthquake.

Since the Atacama region is one of the driest in the world, it is difficult to find evidence of a tsunami.

“However, we did find evidence of marine sediments and a lot of monsters that would have lived quietly at sea before they were dumped inside,” Goff said.

He added, “And we found all of these things very high and far from land, so it couldn’t have been a storm that put them there.

“For this, it is necessary for ‘something’ to lift it up and we assume that ‘something’ is the tectonic disturbance that occurs during large subduction earthquakes,” Easton said.

“Our hypothesis is that this event could have caused a very high mortality rate among people, or it may have also stimulated the migration of a large number of people to other areas,” Salazar said.

The ancient mega earthquake drastically altered coastal communities for hundreds of kilometers, while the few survivors left the seashore.

He said, “In the following thousand years, the population appears to have recovered because the cemeteries reappeared, and the sites are larger and more numerous, which indicates that the demographics are beginning to recover. But the settlements and cemeteries place them at a higher elevation and at a greater distance from the coast than was the case before the event.

A massive earthquake triggered a giant tsunami that caused so much devastation to coastal residents that it took at least 1,000 years for them to return to life on shore.

Easton found an internal seismic fault, which shows archaeological evidence that it occurred approximately 4,000 years ago, similar to a fault that resulted from a 1995 earthquake nearby.

The authors believe the study could guide preparations for future disasters.

They suggest that the death of so many people thousands of years ago means that even knowledge of how to adapt to life in seismic zones – a challenge even today – has been lost.

“If knowledge is not permanently cultivated and reactivated, it begins to fade,” Salazar noted.

The study indicated that current disaster planning is based on data dating back to the 19th century only.

Given the new information and the possibility of earthquakes at least as large as those in 1960, this means, according to Salazar, that “management plans must be calibrated based on this possibility, with a view to reducing the disaster risk associated with this type of encounter.”

Referring to the danger earthquakes pose to people living elsewhere, Goff said: “While this had a huge impact on people in Chile, the South Pacific islands were uninhabited when they were hit by tsunamis before 3800 years old.

“But they are all inhabited now, and many are popular tourist destinations, so the next time such an event occurs the consequences could be dire unless we learn from these results.”

This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.

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