TY - JOUR
T1 - Field Survey of Tsunami Heights and Runups Following the 22 December 2018 Anak Krakatau Volcano Tsunami, Indonesia
AU - Heidarzadeh, Mohammad
AU - Putra, Purna Sulastya
AU - Nugroho, Septriono Hari
AU - Rashid, Doud Ben Zubair
N1 - Funding Information:
The tide gauge data came from the Indonesia Agency for Geo-spatial Information (BIG) (http://tides.big.go.id). We are grateful to numerous local contacts in Indonesia who assisted us during the surveys including the office of Directorate General of Strengthening for Research and Development, Ministry of Research and Technology/National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia; Ms Yetti for arranging the research permit in Indonesia; Mr Yanto, our driver during the survey; and Prof Kenji Satake (The University of Tokyo, Japan) for supporting our survey through writing a recommendation letter to the Government of Indonesia. We thank Prof Kenji Satake, three anonymous reviewers and Prof Alexander Rabinovich (the Editor-in-Chief) for commenting on this article before its publication. Some figures are drafted using The GMT software by Wessel and Smith (1998). This research is supported and financed by the grant number CHL\R1\180173 from the Royal Society, the United Kingdom.
Funding Information:
The tide gauge data came from the Indonesia Agency for Geo-spatial Information (BIG) ( http://tides.big.go.id ). We are grateful to numerous local contacts in Indonesia who assisted us during the surveys including the office of Directorate General of Strengthening for Research and Development, Ministry of Research and Technology/National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia; Ms Yetti for arranging the research permit in Indonesia; Mr Yanto, our driver during the survey; and Prof Kenji Satake (The University of Tokyo, Japan) for supporting our survey through writing a recommendation letter to the Government of Indonesia. We thank Prof Kenji Satake, three anonymous reviewers and Prof Alexander Rabinovich (the Editor-in-Chief) for commenting on this article before its publication. Some figures are drafted using The GMT software by Wessel and Smith (). This research is supported and financed by the grant number CHL\R1\180173 from the Royal Society, the United Kingdom.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - The 22 December 2018 Anak Karakatau tsunami in Indonesia was a rare event in that few instrumental records existed of tsunamis generated by volcanic sources before this event. The tsunami, which left a death toll of 437, is of global importance as it provides opportunities to develop knowledge on generation, propagation and coastal effects of volcanic tsunamis. Here, we report results of field surveys along the coast of the Sunda Strait, Indonesia to study tsunami wave heights and coastal damage. We surveyed 29 locations and measured ranges of tsunami runup from 0.9 to 5.2 m, tsunami heights from 1.4 to 6.3 m, flow depths from 0.2 m to 3.0 m and inundation distances from 18 to 212 m. The largest tsunami heights and concentration of damage and fatalities occurred on the western shore of Java from Tanjung Lesung to Sumur. The largest cluster of fatalities occurred at Tanjung Lesung, where more than 50 people died while attending an outdoor music being held at the shoreline. The tsunami runup and tsunami height in Tanjung Lesung were 4.0 and 2.9–3.8 m, respectively. We believe this tragedy could have been avoided if the event organizers were more aware of the hazard posed by the Anak Krakatau volcano, as it had been actively erupting for several months prior to the tsunami, and simply moved the concert stage 100 m inland. Many of the locations surveyed demonstrated a similar pattern where the majority of casualties and destruction occurred within 100 m of the coast; in several locations, lives were saved where buildings were located at least this distance inland. The significant damage and numerous deaths which occurred in Sumur, despite the moderate tsunami height of 2.3–2.5 m, can be attributed to the extremely low-lying coastal land there. Flow depth in Sumur was 0.9–2.0 m. During our field surveys, nearly one year after the event, we noted that some of the damaged buildings were being rebuilt in the same locations just 10–30 m from the shoreline. We question this practice since the new buildings could be at the same tsunami risk as those damaged in the 2018 event.
AB - The 22 December 2018 Anak Karakatau tsunami in Indonesia was a rare event in that few instrumental records existed of tsunamis generated by volcanic sources before this event. The tsunami, which left a death toll of 437, is of global importance as it provides opportunities to develop knowledge on generation, propagation and coastal effects of volcanic tsunamis. Here, we report results of field surveys along the coast of the Sunda Strait, Indonesia to study tsunami wave heights and coastal damage. We surveyed 29 locations and measured ranges of tsunami runup from 0.9 to 5.2 m, tsunami heights from 1.4 to 6.3 m, flow depths from 0.2 m to 3.0 m and inundation distances from 18 to 212 m. The largest tsunami heights and concentration of damage and fatalities occurred on the western shore of Java from Tanjung Lesung to Sumur. The largest cluster of fatalities occurred at Tanjung Lesung, where more than 50 people died while attending an outdoor music being held at the shoreline. The tsunami runup and tsunami height in Tanjung Lesung were 4.0 and 2.9–3.8 m, respectively. We believe this tragedy could have been avoided if the event organizers were more aware of the hazard posed by the Anak Krakatau volcano, as it had been actively erupting for several months prior to the tsunami, and simply moved the concert stage 100 m inland. Many of the locations surveyed demonstrated a similar pattern where the majority of casualties and destruction occurred within 100 m of the coast; in several locations, lives were saved where buildings were located at least this distance inland. The significant damage and numerous deaths which occurred in Sumur, despite the moderate tsunami height of 2.3–2.5 m, can be attributed to the extremely low-lying coastal land there. Flow depth in Sumur was 0.9–2.0 m. During our field surveys, nearly one year after the event, we noted that some of the damaged buildings were being rebuilt in the same locations just 10–30 m from the shoreline. We question this practice since the new buildings could be at the same tsunami risk as those damaged in the 2018 event.
KW - Anak Krakatau Volcano
KW - field surveys
KW - Sunda Strait
KW - Tsunami
KW - tsunami simulations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086904424&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00024-020-02587-w
DO - 10.1007/s00024-020-02587-w
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086904424
SN - 0033-4553
VL - 177
SP - 4577
EP - 4595
JO - Pure and Applied Geophysics
JF - Pure and Applied Geophysics
IS - 10
ER -