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The aftermath of the 1,720 ft high megatsunami

Date: July 9^th, 1958.

Location: Latuya Bay, Alaska

Disaster Type: Megatsunami

Fatalities: 5

Resulting Damage: 4.5 Square miles of forest flattened.

Although there were just five deaths from the Lituya Bay magatsunami in 1958, I've included this occurrence as it gives an idea of the destructive force of a megatsunami and demonstrates how nature can suddenly throw unexpected surprises at us.

Can you picture being on a boat and hearing what sounds like an atomic explosion, then being met head on by a 1,720 feet high wall of water? This is exactly what happened to Howard G.Ulrich and his son who were anchored in a small cove. After being woken up by violent rocking of his boat due to an 8.3 magnitude earthquake on the Fairweather Fault, he then went on deck to see what was going on. Following that, 30 million cubic meters of rock and ice fell into the narrow inlet in Lituya Bay, Alaska. Fortunately, they were then miraculously carried by the wave over treetops as the wave crossed land and then dropped them back in the water safely on the other side of the land mass.

Not everyone was lucky on the day that the megatsunami occurred on July the 9th, 1958. Two other people who were anchored in the bay on their boat were killed; three other people also died when the beach that they were standing on suddenly subsided to 100 feet below sea level.

The force of the wave ripped out trees and plant life over a 4.5 square mile area of dense forest, from elevations up to 1,720 feet above sea level. Millions of trees were just swept out to sea. It is the highest wave ever known in recorded history. Lituya Bay has regularly produced tsunamis over 100 feet ; in 1854 a wave of 395 feet occurred, a 200 foot wave in 1899 and a 490 foot wave in 1936. Put it this way, you wouldn't want to build a house there. The shockwave from this megatsunami was felt in Seattle all the way to Yukon in Canada; an area of 400,000 square miles.

About 8,000 years ago in Sicily there was a huge landslide triggered by gushing lava which hit the ocean at 200 miles per hour. Verbal accounts and work from researchers suggest that the wave that spread across the Mediterranean Sea was probably as tall as a ten story building.

On a lighter note, the biggest wave ever surfed was by Garrett McNamara who surfed a wave off the coast of Portugal which was a staggering 100 feet tall.