Massive and deadly M 8.0 earthquake hit Santa Cruz Islands – Tsunami went 500 m inland damaging 3 villages [1]

The Watchers [2] - 2/06/13, By Chillymanjaro

Massive subduction earthquake, registered as M 8.0 (USGS/EMSC), hit Santa Cruz Islands at 01:12 UTC on February 6, 2013. The epicenter was located at coordinates 10.752°S, 165.089°E, about 81 km (50 miles) W of Lata, Solomon Islands at depth of 5.8 km (3.6 miles) (poorly constrained).

Update 06:00 UTC: Unfortunately the Lata Hospital is expecting further casualties of this tsunami. They have confirmed that around 700 people live in the 3 villages destroyed but many people would have escaped. If we take the Koshimura (2006) percentages seen in Banda Aceh from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. For a 2m tsunami, the death ratio was around 0.08-0.1 thus around 60-70 deaths would be expected. For a 0.9-1.1m tsunami as reported, the death ratio was around 0.01-0.025 which would mean around 7-18 deaths are to be expected using this function.

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