Another Tsunami Warning
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Thu 8 Oct 2009 02:06
|
We are now further south in New Caledonia moored on
the west side of Grande Terre, the main island, in a bay with no other
boats. We had our VHF radio on all morning and heard quite a bit
of chatter in French, but didn't understand what was going on until we
heard the tsunami warning cancellation in English at about 11:30. Imagine
our surprise since we didn't hear the tsunami warning in the first
place.
After scrambling to tune in Radio Australia on
our short wave radio, we learned that there was another earthquake, this time
just north of Vanuatu, and very close to home. It's still not clear
whether a tsunami occurred or not, but we did hear someone from Port Vila,
Vanuatu interviewed on the radio and it sounded like Port Vila was fine - which
was good to hear because when we left it eleven days ago, the Port
Vila harbor was packed with boats and the town more bustling and brimming with
life than ever.
So, kind of a non-event for us since we didn't even
know the warning existed until after it was cancelled, but unnerving
none-the-less. Yesterday we received an email forwarded several times
through friends of friends written by a boating couple that survived the brunt
of the last tsunami in Pago Pago, American Samoa. They were on their
sailboat, tied to the concrete dock in the harbor when they felt the
earthquake. Twenty minutes later the tsunami hit. The
tsunami was so big that all the water was sucked out of the harbor before
the first wave came in so all the boats that were docked or anchored fell to
the dry bottom and tipped over. Seconds later the first big wave
flooded in. The husband thought fast and turned on the engine
while his wife cut the dock lines with a bread knife. He then motored
them to safety in the deepest part of the Pago Pago harbor, dodging
floating/half sinking fishing boats, other sailboats and pieces and parts
of docks and buildings floating in the wildly churning water. To make a
long story short, the couple survived and their boat was only lightly
damaged. Many other boats ended up smashed on land. A man
on a boat that was docked near them was washed off his boat when the first
waves hit and was drowned. I'm sure the rest of the devastation on land
has been covered on the news, but it is something else to read a firsthand
account from someone that survived it on a boat much like our own. Mother
Nature can be ugly. Let's hope she's thrown her last temper tantrum for
the foreseeable future.
Cheers from calm New Caledonia -
Anne
|