HR: 1340h
AN: S13A-1051    [Abstracts]
TI: Near-Field Population Response During the 2 April 2007 Solomon Islands Tsunami
AU: * McAdoo, B G
EM: brmcadoo@vassar.edu
AF: Vassar College, 124 Raymond Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604,
AU: Moore, A L
EM: moorean@earlham.edu
AF: Earlham College, 800 National Rd., Richmond, IN 47374,
AU: Baumwoll, J
EM: jebaumwoll@gmail.com
AF: International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, P.O. Box 967, Prakhanong Post Office, Bangkok, 10110, Thailand
AB: When the magnitude 8.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the Solomon Islands on 2 April 2007 it killed 52 people. On Ghizo Island, home of the capital of the Western Province, Gizo, waves approaching 4 m in height inundated the south coast villages. Eyewitness accounts supported by geologic data from the offshore coral reef and sediment deposited on land suggest a wave that came in as the shaking stopped as a rapidly-rising tide rather than a turbulent bore- vehicles and houses were floated inland with very little damage. Those that survived in villages affected by the tsunami had indigenous knowledge of prior events, whereas immigrant populations died in higher proportions. While buoy-based early warning systems are necessary to mitigate the effects of teletsunamis, they would have done little good in this near-field environment. In Pailongge, a village of 76 indigenous Solomon Islanders on Ghizo's south coast, there were no deaths. Village elders directed the people inland following the shaking and the almost immediate withdrawal of water from the lagoon, and heads of household made sure that children were accounted for and evacuated. Of the 366 Gilbertese living in Titiana, however, 13 people died, 8 of which were children who were exploring the emptied lagoon. A large proportion of the dead were children (24) as they were likely too weak to swim against the non-bore flow. The Gilbertese migrated from Kiribati in the 1950"s, and had not experienced a major earthquake and tsunami, hence had no cultural memory. In the case of the Solomon Islands tsunami, as was the case in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, indigenous knowledge served the people in the near-field well. In the case of the Indian Ocean where there was 10-20 minutes separation between the time the shaking began and the waves arrived, the combination of an in-place plan and a suitable physical geography allowed the population of Simeulue Island and the Moken people of Thailand to escape before the waves hit. In the Solomons, there was less than 3 minutes separation time, and the populations with indigenous knowledge were able to save themselves. Mitigation strategies for those that live adjacent to tsunamigenic subduction zones must include a community-based disaster management plan to educate a variety of populations with different cultural knowledges. This education can be in concert with development of an basin-wide early warning system.
DE: 0815 Informal education
DE: 4217 Coastal processes
DE: 4220 Coral reef systems (4916)
DE: 4564 Tsunamis and storm surges
DE: 6349 General or miscellaneous
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting