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Sunday 20 March 2011

'This tsunami was the worst I've ever seen', says Dr Costas Synolakis


Japan 2011. Costas Synolakis, from University of Southern California, talked to BBC World Service estimating the tsunami in Japan in terms of forecasting and predicting such natural disasters. 
(source: BBC World Service)

'The initial estimation of this earthquake was probably not very good. In the beginning it was underestimated', he said.

BBC journalist:
'How difficult is it to model what happens when that amount of water hits a city?'
Costas Synolakis:
'It really depends on what kind of structures there are, whether there are  farmlands, airports or roads. All of these are incredibly useful data to develop even better models of to forecast such a disaster beforehand, to predict exactly what you see on your screens. It would be wonderful if we could do that in 10 or 15 minutes before it actually happens.'

Listen to a part of the original interview here:



According to him, the way the forecast works is the following:

The earthquake happens, there is a forecast about the initial shape of the wave.
Then, as the tsunami moves across the Pacific, it is recorded by instruments called 'tsunamographs'. They are deep water recorders. They measure the change in the water pressure, they stay on the sea floor and wait.

And then, when the tsunami comes by, they monitor the change in pressure, they record that, then it is transmitted to a satellite and then back to the warning centres.

So, at this point, we are about a couple of hours after the earthquake has hit, we have the first measurements, so we can improve the forecast and there's a wave keeps on propagating across the Pacific. More and more tsunamograph recordings become available so that the forecast improves even better.


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