Tsunami Event Summary Videos

Tsunami Awareness Materials > Tsunami Event Summary Videos

International Tsunami Survey Team (ITST) and Hawaii Post-tsunami survey event data, photographs and slides, and videos have been collected by ITIC and NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and collocated World Data Service for Geophysics (WDS) from 29 tsunamis around the world since 1946, including seven tsunamis that impacted the Hawaiian Islands.

In Hawaii, State and County government and private archives were inventoried and a historical tsunami photo drive was conducted asking residents to contribute photos from their family albums from the 1946, 1952, 1957, 1960, and 1964 tsunamis that hit Hawaii. These data, representing more than 6,000 photos and hours of videos are now digitally available, with metadata descriptions.

To summarize the events and show their impacts, short videos were created.  Thirteen have been created to date and are available online from ITIC and NCEI (1998 Sissano and 2002 Wewak, Papua New Guinea; 1999 Izmit, Turkey; 2004 Indonesia; 2007 Solomon Islands; 2009 by country (American Samoa, Samoa, Tonga); 2010 Chile; 2011 Japan; 1946-2011 tsunamis affecting Hawaii by island (Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Big Island)).

The videos used the collected photographs, videos, and data from the NCEI Global Historical Tsunami Database that contains information on the tsunami source, tsunami run-ups and maximum wave heights, and its effects such as damage, deaths, and injuries. These videos support ITIC's public education and outreach mission by providing concise, informative, science-based visual summaries of important historical tsunamis.