The tsunami waves which struck Samoa and American Samoa, killing more than 200 people including a British toddler, were more than four storeys high when they slammed into the coastline, scientists have revealed.
New Zealand scientists studying the size, power and reach of the tsunami as part of efforts to guard against future disasters said they found up to three destructive waves were caused by a magnitude 8.0 undersea earthquake which struck the Pacific islands causing mass devastation on September 29.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwar) and GNS Science in New Zealand carried out field work the tsunami and released their data today, and revealed the waves towered up to 46 feet high — more than twice as tall as most of the buildings it slammed into.
“The Samoa tsunami consisted of two to three significant waves; the second wave was said by witnesses to be larger,” a statement from Niwar said.
“The delay between the earthquake and the arrival of the first wave was about 10 minutes in Samoa and 20 minutes in American Samoa.
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“The maximum height reached by the tsunami on the land was 14 metres above mean sea level in Samoa and 10 metres in American Samoa.
“The furthest inland the waves reached was over 700 metres from the shore.”
The massive waves that struck Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga totally destroyed traditional wooden buildings, many of them singly story, along the coast while reinforced concrete buildings sustained only minor damage.
Stefan Reese, a risk engineer with Niwar in New Zealand said in some areas “there was virtually nothing left” after the waves reached up to 765 yards (700 meters) inland.
“Wide reefs saved some villages by helping to reduce the waves’ height to about 10 feet,” Mr Reese said.
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According to the research, the Samoan quake created a sea floor fault up to 190 miles long and 23 feet deep.
Witnesses on Samoa, where 183 people perished, at the time said it looked as if the sea disappeared before the giant wave came back and struck the island.
“We had just finished sweeping and we looked out to sea and there was nothing — no water, there was only coral,” a worker at the resort on the Samoan island of Upolo told The Times the day after the tsunami.
“Then after about five minutes we saw the big wave coming and I said, ‘We have to flee’. So we left in the car and we could see the wave — which was about 3m [10ft] high — coming closer. We were driving down the main road and we could see the wave.”
Karen Niumata, who was at one of the worst hit areas, Lepa in the Aleipata district, told the website Stuff.co.nz that it looked as if the wave reached the sky.
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“We saw the reef suddenly, and we saw all the rocks were shiny, and then the wave filled the sky...,” she told the website.
“The wave, it reached the sky, oh my god, we ran.
“We thought we would die.”
The toddler son of a British couple was killed in the tsunami when the three-year-old was swept out to sea by the giant wave when it hit the south coast of Samoa.