Lori Dingler | Tsunami garnish in March 2011 – Times-Standard

A decade has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. A recent 7.1-magnitude aftershock (see last week’s column) is a reminder that the earthquake sequence is still in progress. For people living in coastal communities in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, much of the land still shows tsunami scars and the barren landscapes are a daily reminder that a full recovery is still ahead.

What is the purpose of commemorating past disasters? We pause and acknowledge what happened and the loss and pain of so many. It’s also a brief moment when attention is focused on tsunamis, earthquakes, or whatever the event. It is an opportunity to share what has been learned and underscore what it takes to build more tsunami-resistant societies. In that spirit, my next few columns will take a personal look at what happened in March 2011.

The story didn’t start on March 11th. Just before 8 pm on March 8, 2011, my phone started to hype. The West Coast Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) announced a magnitude 7.2 earthquake off the coast of the Sendai Plain. It was a tsunami information statement and said there was no threat to Alaska or the west coast of North America.

A little background on how alerts work. US Tsunami Centers constantly monitor earthquake activity and when an earthquake is over-rated, messages are issued. The lowest and most issued level is the Information Statement. These usually don’t imply any threat, don’t worry, there’s no action required. US Tsunami Centers issued 41 messages in the past month, 33 of which were media statements.

After the statement, the message categories differ for the United States and foreign countries. I will only be taking the US bulletins today. The next step is tsunami monitoring. The hours mean there’s the possibility of a devastating tsunami on its way, but there is time to assess the threat further before the waves arrive. During this time, warning centers collect water level data, analyze seismic signals and run tsunami models. Only one watch was released last month – to Samoa after February 10 M7.8 at Loyalty Islands and like many watches, it was canceled a few hours later.

No tsunami or tsunami warnings have been issued in the last month. These are alerts that require action. An alert is usually issued when a tsunami is expected, but the water’s peak will not exceed a few feet and the impacts are limited to beaches and harbors where strong currents can damage boats and marine structures.

Tsunami warning is the most serious warning and tsunamis are expected to occur three feet or higher. County emergency officials are expected to take action when issuing an alert or warning – closing harbor areas and clearing some beaches if a consultant is present and ordering large-scale evacuations if there is a warning. Only county officials can request an eviction.

When issuing a watch, advice or warning, warning centers continue to issue updated bulletins at intervals of 30 minutes to an hour as long as the status is high. Initial monitoring may become an alert or warning in subsequent bulletins, or it can be canceled. In rare cases, the initial statement of no threat may take it to a higher level as more data is received.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) also released a bulletin again on March 8, 2011 (March 9 in Japan). JMA messages are for Japan only and are for the affected region. It was expected to produce 7.2 heights of up to 20 inches along the Sendai coast. The actual peak of the tsunami was 21 inches.

This 7.2 earthquake gave no indication that it would soon be swallowed by a much larger earthquake and would become a harbinger in an extraordinary sequence that continues to the present. Japan has a written record of earthquakes and tsunamis extending to the Tokugawa Shogun at least 400 years ago. The record is likely complete for earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 and greater.

Earthquakes in the 7 ° low range have repeated every 30 to 40 years in the area off the Sendai Plain in historical times. There are a few large earthquakes sprayed, such as 1978 7.7. In 2008, JMA scientists assessed the seismic threat for the entire country and put the odds of 90% for an M7 earthquake in the next 30 years and 1 to 10% for an M8 event. The March 9 M7.2 was exactly what they had been expecting.

400 years seems like a long time and far exceeds our written record of 170 years on the North Coast. But the word “long” in human terms is only a blink of an eye for geological forces. There were signs in the Japanese geological record of something larger in storage. Ancient seismologists have discovered evidence of much larger earthquakes in the distant past. I was aware of some studies because I worked on a project studying tsunami risk in the San Francisco Bay Area. We included the M9 off the coast of northern Japan as one possibility.

I definitely didn’t think about it after 7.2, not even a couple of days later when I got another text from WCATWC. It was just before 10pm on March 10. The first part of the message did not cause any alarm, “This tsunami information statement is for Alaska / British Columbia / Washington / Oregon and California only. No warning … There is no watch and no advice in effect …” But scrolling down, I saw that the initial volume It was 7.9 and, unlike most tsunami data, did not say that a tsunami was not expected. Instead, she said the event is under evaluation and more information will be released in the next publication.

And you, too, will need to wait until next week for the rest of the story.

Laurie Dingler is professor emeritus of geology at Humboldt State University, and an expert in tsunami and earthquake hazards. Questions or comments about this column, or do you want a free copy of Live On Shaken Ground? Leave a message at 707-826-6019 or send an email to [email protected].

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