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Tsunami Advisory Called Off with No Damage, Injuries Reported
California’s tsunami advisory was canceled Saturday night after a tidal surge from Chile’s deadly earthquake passed without injuries or serious damage.
The advisory was issued at 8:47 a.m. Saturday by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, within hours of a massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked central Chile. At least 700 people were killed in the quake, which sent giant waves racing across the Pacific Ocean.
The advisory zone stretched from the U.S.-Mexico border to Alaska, and tsunami warnings were issued for Hawaii and throughout much of the South Pacific region. For the most part, the tsunami swell passed without incident, and all advisories and warnings have now been lifted.
Authorities in Santa Barbara reported a surge of a little more than a foot Saturday afternoon, but had “strongly” recommended that people leave the harbor, waterfront and beach area in advance. Although the tsunami tide was largely invisible, authorities warned of the potential of dangerous currents and surf conditions.
Click here for a video of the tsunami surge at the Santa Barbara Harbor submitted by a Noozhawk reader.
Down the coast, in the Ventura Keys neighborhood, more than a dozen boat docks were reported damaged and a few vessels unmoored as a 3-foot tsunami tide rolled into Ventura Harbor. Officials also reported a few loose navigational buoys. There were no injuries and none of the damage was considered significant.
In Chile, news reports estimated that as many as 1.5 million homes were damaged, highways were cut off, and bridges and buildings collapsed as the earthquake struck just before dawn Saturday near Concepcíon, about 200 miles southwest of Santiago, the capital. Numerous aftershocks of magnitude 5 and higher have been recorded.
The earthquake is one of the strongest to hit Chile, which was struck by an 8.5-magnitude temblor on March 3, 1985. The Jan. 12 earthquake that killed as many as 230,000 people in Haiti was a magnitude 7.
The biggest earthquake on record, a 9.5-magnitude quake on May 22, 1960, also struck Chile. That quake generated a tsunami that killed 61 people as waves as high as 30 feet smashed shorelines as far away as Hawaii, the Philippines and Japan.
Google quickly launched a “Person Finder” to connect those looking for missing people in Chile and those who have information. Click here to launch Google’s Person Finder.
Click here for an NOAA animation of the tsunami wave pattern. Click here for the Trendsmap of tsunami tweets from around the world.
— Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk.
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» on 02.28.10 @ 02:53 PM
much ado about nothing. didn’t even come up to the blue lines (or where they would have been if Helene had her way(.
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