Natural Disasters and Family Misfortunes 20: 1929 Newfoundland Earthquake & Tsunami

 
A recent blog post on Watts Up With That? was titled, Raise your hand if you knew Newfoundland was devastated by a major tsunami in 1929. I had to raise my hand because, probably like many other people, I did not know that.

This is one of those stories that is close to home (at least it is in Canada, if on the other side of the country) which too often we do not study about enough. When I got to looking up the event, I discovered that there is quite a lot of information about the event along with considerable scientific research on the physical aspects of this tsunami and tsunamis in general using this example.

The 1929 tsunami was the result of a magnitude 7.2 earthquake and subsequent slump of debris in the Laurentian Channel on 18 November 1929. The centre of the disturbance was about 150 miles south of Newfoundland.

Map showing intensity of earthquake felt throughout Maritime Canada from 2011 report by Natural Resources Canada

The tsunami generated by the earthquake struck southern Newfoundland about two and a half hours after the event. It came in three pulses causing sea level to rise over 20 feet. At the heads of inlets, the water was over 40 feet higher than normal. According to the government report, “In more than 40 villages in southern Newfoundland homes, ships and businesses were destroyed. More than 280,000 pounds of salt cod were lost. Total property losses were estimated at more than one million 1929 dollars [$14.5 million today].”

Map showing extent of damage along the Burin Peninsula of Southern Newfoundland from 2011 report by Natural Resources Canada

The Burin Peninsula had been isolated prior to the earthquake when a storm the previous weekend had broken the one strand of telegraph wire that connected the area to the rest of the province. The tsunami took care of the rest of the communications infrastructure along the southern coast.

Some damage from the earthquake and tidal wave had been reported in towns further up Placentia Bay to the northeast, but news of the disaster along Burin Peninsula was not relayed for over two days. Newspapers across the country shouted reports of the disaster which had killed 27 people and caused untold destruction.

Because of the market crash the previous month, much attention from the news media was being directed at the international economy. What was happening in the natural world did not get much notice. And being cut off from the world by broken telegraph lines on land and submerged cables running across the ocean floor of the Grand Banks. Over several hours following the earthquake, 12 trans-Atlantic cables were cut.

Map showing location of broken cables resulting from the earthquake and debris flows; source Earth Magazine website

Eventually the world heard about the disaster and relief came in the form of food, blankets, medical supplies, and doctors and nurses. Some areas partially recovered, in terms of infrastructure at least, in a few years; others never did. Many families were impacted and a few entirely wiped out.

These kinds of events are not unique. They have happened along coastal margins for hundreds of millions of years. They achieve notoriety when communities are destroyed, and people are killed. Some events may go unnoticed by the outside world for years because of competing news stories, their remote location or, in this case, the break in communications.