Tsunami's eerie warning sign

Dear mouse,

If you live in the coastal area or vacationing in some beach resort,take note of these signs for tsunami.

by WILLIAM SHERMANDAILY

Tuesday, December 28th, 2004

Five to 10 minutes before it strikes, a tsunami usually gives a powerful warning that's hard to miss from the shore. It's not a roiling wave coming in, but the reverse - all the water in view going out to sea in the most massive and powerful undertow imaginable. "If you're standing on the beach, the water can recede all the way out to the horizon," said Brian Yanagi, Hawaii's program specialist for earthquakes and tsunamis. "Our biggest worry is for surfers, swimmers and Boogie Boarders because that giant undertow starts quickly and moves out at about 30 mph, pulling everything down beneath the surface. "If you're standing in waist-high water or even less, it will pull you out and down and kill you," he said. Those on the shore have 10 minutes to reach high ground before the tsunami waves - actually walls of tumbling water - strike. On April 1, 1946, before a tsunami struck the town of Hilo on the eastern shore of Hawaii island, the town's entire mile-wide harbor drained into the ocean. "People came rushing down to see what happened, there were fish flopping around on the ground - and then the wave hit," said Ray Novell, spokesman for Hawaii's Civil Defense Department. More than 150 were killed in that incident. That first killer wave is just the beginning of the tsunami. The big damage is caused by the third, fourth or fifth wave, according to Yanagi. An undersea earthquake causes seismic shocks that produce numerous waves, each more powerful than the previous one in the cycle of massive undertows and debris gathered up and into the incoming waves, Yanagi said. A tsunami can last from 30 minutes to 10 hours

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