Experts find bigger seafloor shifts in RI

Experts find bigger seafloor shifts in RI

USA: Scientists who studied the seafloor near Sumatra with
remotely operated vehicles after a tsunami devastated the
Indonesian island last year said on Tuesday (Wednesday in
Jakarta) they found parts displaced by up to 12 meters, nearly
twice as much as they had expected.

The tsunami a year ago killed more than 200,000 people on
coastlines along the Indian Ocean.

The discovery will help refine tsunami forecasting and improve
coastal warning systems for areas with faultlines, including the
U.S. Pacific Northwest, said tsunami modeler Stephan Grilli of
the University of Rhode Island.

"Communities in Oregon and Washington have been anticipating
waves of only 10 to 12 meters or so, but now they need to be even
better prepared," Grilli said, pointing to the potential for much
bigger waves.

Grilli, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, noted
that if a 9.2 magnitude earthquake struck off the coasts of
Oregon and Washington, the level of the quake that triggered the
tsunami, parts of the coastlines of the two states could be hit
by waves up to 30 meters high, or three times more than predicted
previously. -- Reuters