U3 Part5 B exercise

Part 5 B

 Walter Dudley is a professor of oceanography and director of the Marine Center. He’s also the author of a book about the Tsunami.

Walter Dudley:First of all, there’s the matter of monitoring earthquakes. And the Indian government is quite good at that. But when you have a large earthquake that occurs, if you know if it’s big enough and where the epicenter is, if the epicenter’s under water, then potentially it could have generated a tsunami, and the next thing then is to confirm whether tsunami waves have actually been generated. If you declare warnings every time there was an earthquake, you’d have system that would very quickly be ignored by the public because, fortunately, most earthquakes don’t generate tsunamis.

Robin Rupli: It’s my understanding that an earthquake took place two or two and a half hours before the tsunami hit. Is that correct?

Walter Dudley: Well, it depends on how far away people are from the earthquake. Those communities right near the earthquake would have been affected almost immediately. The tsunami in 1960 that came from Chile of course destroyed coastal communities in Chile immediately. It arrived in Hawaii 14 hours later and it hit the coast of Japan a full 24 hours later and still killed over a hundred people there. So it really depends on the distance from the earthquake. My understanding is that most of the hardest hit areas were about two hours away.

Robin Rupli: What are some of the signs that the ordinary person could recognize?

Walter Dudley: If you’re at the coast and you see the water either, mysteriously for no apparent reason, withdrawing or coming in, then that’s an indication that something unusual and potentially very deadly is about to occur. Also, if you’re at the coast and you feel an earthquake or were to witness a landslide, those are things that can also, you know, would be an indicator that there is tsunami potential there.

Robin Rupli: Walter Dudley, thank you so much.

Walter Dudley: It’s been a pleasure talking with you, Robin.

Robin Rupli: Walter Dudley is Professor of Oceanography and Director of the Marine Center in Hilo, Hawaii. This is Robin Rupli.