DAILY NEWS Oct 5, 2007 4:55 PM - 0 comments

Tsunamis after next Cascadia earthquake might be more damaging than ground shaking

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Ground shaking caused by the next predicted Cascadia earthquake off the western coast of British Columbia is expected to result in losses of between US$40 and US$60 billion — and damage losses resulting from the accompanying tsunami waves could be even larger than that, according to the Hazard & Risk Science Review 2007.
The review, a joint publication of Benfield and PartnerRe, surveys hazard and risk science papers published in the past 12 months that are relevant to the reinsurance and insurance markets.
The review cites research conducted by Josef Cherniawsky of Canada’s Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans, which provides some idea of the scale of tsunami run-up from a rupture of the whole 1,100-km long Cascadia Subduction Zone, or just its northern segment.
Such an earthquake, the scientists predicted “would have [tsunami] run-ups in the 5-8 metre range, and as high as 16 metres in places.”
Portland University researchers Robert Schlichting and Curt Peterson reported that even minimum, high-velocity inundations of between 0.3 km and 1.3 km, — with a mean inundation of 0.5 km — “highlight the serious threat of a future tsunami to the coastal zone of British Columbia and the western United States.”
In California, economic loss estimates as a result of a tsunami are on the order of US$270 billion, the review notes.
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