October
08
/ 2019
The catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of late 2004 claimed up to 300,000 lives in the space of 24 hours. In 2011, the Japanese tsunami claimed another 20,000 lives. Prior to these events, few scientists were interested in studying tsunamis as they believed that they were very rare events. An exception is Professor Ted Bryant of Wollongong University who has discovered that tsunamis regularly inundated the Pacific coast during Australia’s prehistory; the last event occurring in 1491. The following summary is a selection of ancient tsunamis which have occurred during the era of human habitation and may have been responsible for millions of deaths around the world. All occurred during prehistoric times but left tsunami signatures of debris along coastlines. The
