[Paddlewise] Tsunami Article, Scientific American

Check out this address for a great article on Tsunamis.

http://www.sciam.com/1999/0599issue/0599gonzalez.html

Scientific American, Tsunami! by Frank I. Gonzalez

This is the second paragraph of the article;

Retired Colonel John Sanawe, who lived near the southeast end of the sandbar
at Arop, survived the tsunami and later told his story to Hugh Davies of the
University of Papua New Guinea. Just after the main shock struck only 20
kilometers offshore, Sanawe saw the sea rise above the horizon and then
spray vertically perhaps 30 meters. Unexpected sounds--first like distant
thunder, then like a nearby helicopter--gradually faded as he watched the
sea slowly recede below the normal low-water mark. After four or five
minutes of silence, he heard a rumble like that of a low-flying jet plane.
Sanawe spotted the first tsunami wave, perhaps three or four meters high. He
tried to run home, but the wave overtook him. A second, larger wave
flattened the village and swept him a kilometer into a mangrove forest on
the inland shore of the lagoon.

Rex

Reading Scientific American is a lot more fun than doing my taxes.


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