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Twin Tsunamis Triggered by the 12 January 2010 Haiti Earthquake

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Abstract

On 12 January 2010, a magnitude M w 7.0 earthquake occurred 25 km west–southwest of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince causing an estimated 316,000 fatalities, thereby exceeding any previous loss of life from a similar size earthquake. In addition, tsunami waves triggered by the earthquake caused at least three fatalities at Petit Paradis due to a complete lack of tsunami awareness. The International Tsunami Survey Team (ITST) was deployed within weeks of the event and covered the greater Bay of Port-au-Prince and more than 100 km of Hispaniola’s southern coastline. The collected survey data include more than 21 tsunami heights along with observations of coastal land level change. Maximum tsunami heights of 3 m have been measured for two independently triggered tsunamis.

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Acknowledgments

The survey was supported logistically by ONAMET of the Dominican Republic and UNESCO-IOC. F.M. was supported by the National Science Foundation through the NSF NEESR award CMMI-0936603.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Savannah, GA, 31407, USA

    Hermann M. Fritz & Fahad Mohammed

  2. Université Quisqueya, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

    Jean Vilmond Hillaire

  3. Ecole Nationale de Géologie Appliquée, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

    Emanuel Molière

  4. Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, NOAA, Seattle, WA, 98115, USA

    Yong Wei

  5. Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98105, USA

    Yong Wei

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  1. Hermann M. Fritz
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  2. Jean Vilmond Hillaire
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Correspondence to Hermann M. Fritz.

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Fritz, H.M., Hillaire, J.V., Molière, E. et al. Twin Tsunamis Triggered by the 12 January 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Pure Appl. Geophys. 170, 1463–1474 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-012-0479-3

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