Lives were saved in American Samoa by tsunami awareness workshops, training and preparedness messages in the months before the disaster, key Hawaii-based officials say.
Lava pouring into the ocean at Waikupanaha, seen in this image taken Thursday, has created a shelf that could collapse with little warning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Such delta/bench collapses can produce hot rockfalls inland and in the adjacent ocean and can produce large local waves. If a much larger piece of the Big Island suddenly slid into the ocean, it could produce a tsunami that would strike the other islands within about 20 minutes. A submarine landslide or a large quake related to the volcano could also produce seismic sea waves.
And Hawaii residents could benefit from the same awareness of the hazards of locally generated quakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which urges coastal residents to "heed natural warnings" such as the ground tremors.
A volcano-related quake or landslide on the southeast side of Big Island is the most common scenario for tsu-namis that would hit Hilo and Kona in five minutes, Maui within 20 minutes and Honolulu within 40 minutes, perhaps before civil defense sirens can sound.
The 8.0-magnitude quake south of American Samoa on Sept. 29 generated a tsunami that arrived within about 25 minutes.
"Almost everyone knew what to do and evacuated," said Pacific Tsunami Warning Center geophysicist Gerard Fryer in an e-mail from American Samoa. "It is tragic that 32 died, but had the public not been so well educated, the death toll would have been far higher."
For Samoa and Tonga the toll was about 176, with one person still missing.
In Honolulu, Akapo Akapo, National Weather Service meteorologist in charge of the Pago Pago office, agreed with Fryer on Friday, saying, "Education saved more lives than anything else."
Akapo said Pacific tsunami exercises and evacuation drills "planted in minds of people" of American Samoa what to do in a tsunami.
He said many people killed were in their cars and did not hear village bells ringing to warn people.
"We don't have a siren system in American Samoa," Akapo said. "I'm hoping after this tsunami the federal government will look more favorably at it."
When Akapo walked into his office and heard the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center estimate the quake's magnitude at 7.9, he immediately called Territorial Homeland Security to activate the warning system.
"Right away (at 7:01 a.m.) from the information we had, we issued an alert verbally (via radio) even before the second wave," Akapo said. (The PTWC warning went out 16 minutes after the earthquake and nine minutes before the second wave, which was the first destructive wave, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)
Akapo said his office also activated NOAA weather radios provided to all schools in the past year. The high-frequency radios can be set to turn on automatically for a severe weather or tsunami warning.
He said people "are keen to learn more" about tsunamis. "We need continuing education and, hopefully, improved warning instrumentation."
Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Honolulu, said lack of seismic stations in the Southwest Pacific limits information needed to pinpoint an earthquake quickly.
(Original article at http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20091012_Disaster_education_was_key.html)