Tsunami would crash into shore within minutes of major Seattle-area earthquake: study

Tejaswini
4 Min Read

A high-frequency earthquake in the Seattle area might cause tsunami waves of about  42 feet to crash into Seattle shorelines within no time after the earthquake said the Seattle government.

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources study said that tsunami waves will reach the shoreline in no less than 3 minutes after wiping the places like Bainbridge, Elliott Bay, and Alki Point. The fault line had several low frequencies of earthquakes all over the region,  but heavy damage caused by one was actually recorded about 1,000 years ago, the state agency said. 

A minimum scale of roughly 7.5 magnitude quakesseattle might happen on the shoreline today, the alterations of the earthen plates show that tsunami waves might travel through the Puget Sound, Rosario Strait, and the Strait of Georgia. It will have a hard time impact on the shoreline from the Canadian border to Olympia within an hour. The waves could be as high as the great wheel in seatlle and might get the whole city sink, and can wash away all the neighborhood too.

Within just 3 minutes, the first tsunami wave might hit the greater Seattle area, according to the simulations. Waves could last more than 3 hours and the department said that they could be as high as 42 feet at the iconic Seattle Great Wheel. Waves could overtake Lumen Field, the home of the Seattle Seahawks, and in some areas of impact, waves could travel up to three miles inland. The department had made this study as part of the state’s efforts to create tsunami response and preparedness plans. More than 760,000 people live in Seattle, and it is Washington’s most populated city now.

The tsunami waves could make their way into the mainland three hours after any major earthquake, according to the study, which did not account for tide stages.“The ground-shaking will be your warning that a tsunami may be on the way,” said Maximilian Dixon, hazards and outreach program supervisor for the state’s emergency management division.“Make sure you know where the closest high ground is and the quickest route to get there. Get signed up for tsunami and local alerts.” This was said by the disaster management central yesterday. Researchers said the most recent earthquake that hit the area was so massive that it pushed a beach on Bainbridge Island upward by 23 feet while also dropping land at Seattle’s West Point by 3 feet. The next earthquake could create a new shoreline, they added. 

“Although the chances of this happening in our lifetime is low, it’s important for families to get prepared now,” Maximilian Dixon, hazards and outreach program supervisor for the Washington Emergency Management Division, said in a statement. “The ground shaking will be your warning that a tsunami may be on the way. Make sure you know where the closest high ground is and the quickest route to get there. Get signed up for tsunami and local alerts.” 

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Hello, i'm Tejaswini koppolu. I'm a masters student from microbiology and I love to create useful content in medical related fields. I'm currently working with the medical market news as a content writer. Apart from medicine and stuff, sketching and anime is my go to stress buster.
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