Double Quake Blamed For South Pacific Tsunami

South Pacific Broadway

New research reveals that the deadly tsunami that pounded several South Pacific islands last year was spawned by not one but two monstrous earthquakes. Nearly 200 died in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga. Two scientific teams now conclude that the disaster was the result of a rare double whammy - two strong earthquakes that hit within minutes of each other. The researchers' findings are published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

By looking closely at the records, it turns out that the much advertised rising sea levels in the South Pacific depend on anomalous depressions of the ocean during 1997 and 1998 thanks to an El Nino and two tropical cyclones. New Zealand has even agreed to accept the “inevitable” rush of refugees, yet the best records available show that sea levels have not raised at all since 1993. The study includes the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The Sea frame equipment used to measure sea levels is carefully recalibrated every 18 months to take these factors into account.



Originally scientists believed that one earthquake had set off the deadly tsunami that struck Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga in September of 2009. They also expected the sea bed to drop but instead it raised a sign of a different kind of “megathrust” quake. Hartford-born Brooke Burke joins the show as new host; Roshumba Williams joins the one of the best judging panels on TV, with Sean Patterson and Robert Verdi as the show moves to Los Angeles.

A special Award was given posthumously to Robert Russell Bennett for “his historic contribution to American musical theater in the field of orchestrations, as represented on Broadway this season by Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific.” The people of Tuvalu are worried, and it appears, their anxiety and fears may simply be a product of those who want to draw attention to their own pet projects for their own selfish goals.