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