South Pacific Islands Earthquake and Tsunami of 29 September 2009

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Title: South Pacific Islands Earthquake and Tsunami of 29 September 2009
Abstract: The magnitude 8.3Mw earthquake struck 175 kilometres south of the Samoan Islands on 29 September 2009 at 6:48am local time. A few minutes later, a series of earthquake triggered tsunami waves hit American Samoa, Western Samoa and the small northern island of Niuatoputapu in Tonga. The tsunami waves, some of which are said to have been as high as 6m, caused fatalities, casualties and devastated entire communities in the Pacific Island countries. The UK Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) decided to mount a reconnaissance mission to the Samoa Islands following this earthquake and resulting tsunami, in particular to assess the effects of the tsunami. This report presents some of the preliminary findings of the team; further images from the EEFIT Team field mission are available on the Virtual Disaster Viewer (www.virtualdisasterviewer.com). This viewer development is an ongoing project supported by EEFIT and other International earthquake reconnaissance teams. It allows the visualisation of the geo‐ referenced photos taken by the team, with pre‐ and post‐earthquake satellite images for the affected areas as well as mapped faults.

Publication Date: Jan. 15, 2010, 6 p.m.
Category: Geoscientific Information; information pertaining to earth sciences. Examples: geophysical features and processes, geology, minerals, sciences dealing with the composition, structure and origin of the earth s rocks, risks of earthquakes, volcanic activity, landslides, gravity information, soils, permafrost, hydrogeology, erosion
Regions: Samoa
Approved: No
Published: Yes
Featured: No
DOI: None
Attribution: None

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