Published On:Monday, January 25, 2010

By TANEKA THOMPSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

tthompson@tribunemedia.net

LAST week's tsunami scare left many wondering how the Bahamas, comprised of low-lying islands with few high points, would cope with a disaster of such immense proportions.

A tsunami -- a series of waves usually caused by earthquakes, volcano eruptions or underwater explosions -- can be extremely dangerous to coastal areas. Its massive waves move in excess of 200 miles an hour -- faster than humans can run -- leaving extensive flooding and death in their wake.

One of the most fatal and devastating tsunamis occurred in 2004, when a 9.1 magnitude undersea quake off the coast of Sumatra spawned waves that killed 220,000 people in countries near the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.

Tsunami reports usually originate from Asia, but last week the fear struck close to home.

Around 5 pm Tuesday, a massive 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti's capital city, destroying schools, hospitals, homes, government buildings, the presidential palace, a prison and leaving hundreds of thousands dead.

On Sunday the official death toll was more than 150,000 in Port-au-Prince alone, with many more thousands dead around the country or still buried under the rubble, Haiti's communications minister said.

The tremors were felt as far away as the Bahamas' most southerly island, Inagua, only 70 miles off Haiti.

A tsunami warning for the Bahamas, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, was issued just after 5 pm Tuesday.

Weather experts anticipated that immense waves would flood the southwest Bahamas around 5.46 pm Tuesday, about an hour after the massive 7.0 quake shook Haiti's capital city. Around 6.30 pm Tuesday, meteorologists' worst fears were calmed when the country's sea levels did not rise significantly.

The warning was dropped around 7 pm.

Although the Bahamas was spared the horror of massive flooding and potential loss of life when the scare did not materialise, one local meteorologist is warning residents not to let their guard down.

Michael Stubbs, chief climatological officer at the Department of Meteorology, thinks it's time for Bahamians and local authorities to create tsunami contingency plans and educate locals on what to do should the threat become real.

Mr Stubbs explained the potential danger.

"A tsunami is nothing to play with," he said. "With a tsunami you don't have that luxury of time, you can feel tsunami waves within five minutes to an hour from the watch being issued."

This would leave little time for Bahamians, many of whom live within a five mile radius of a coast, to flee to higher ground. Seeking refuge may be more difficult in the family islands, where many residents would have to travel long distances to reach a peak, Mr Stubbs said.

"We would have been significantly impacted had the tsunami occurred -- first the islands in the southwest Bahamas also our neighbours in the Turks and Caicos -- would have been severely impacted had the tsunami occurred in the way it was forecast.

"I think we need to be more alert now, the authorities here in the Bahamas, our focus now needs to include not only hurricanes but we need to pay more attention to earthquakes and the corresponding tsunami and educate the public on what to do if a tsunami happened."

In the Bahamas, people near the coast should seek refuge on higher ground; those who cannot escape a coastal area quickly should seek shelter in a high-rise building, Mr Stubbs suggested.

"If you can't move quickly from the coastal area, seek shelter in a well-fortified concrete structure like a hotel on at least the fourth or fifth floor because the height of the wave increases as it approaches the coast or shoreline due to the shallow area, or depth of the shoreline," Mr Stubbs said.

He's afraid that most Bahamians -- with a history of last minute hurricane preparations -- will not understand or take seriously a tsunami threat.

Eastern road resident Dorothy Lowe heard about the tsunami warning a little before 6 pm Tuesday. She said she had no idea what to do or where to go if tremendous waves headed towards the country.

"My thought was well, 'If it's coming it's coming'. We're such a low-lying country and we've had such little time to prepare there's not much we can do. It's something that no one has even suggested could happen to us so you don't have a thought to what to do," she told The Tribune.

The country's topography would also present a challenge, made up of mostly low-lying land, should a tsunami hit. The country's highest point is Mount Alvernia, on Cat Island standing 63 metres high.

"There's not that much higher ground," Mr Stubbs said. "Being low-lying puts you in the path of danger. The potential for devastation is minimised the higher the land mass is."

The epicentre of Tuesday's quake was located inland, 10 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Two strong aftershocks, registering 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter scale, followed. It was the first major quake to hit Haiti in two centuries.

Tremors were felt as far away as Cuba, Puerto Rico and even Inagua.

Inagua residents were dumbfounded as their homes and cars shook, many of them unaware of what to do.

"My place did shake lil' bit, but I didn't know it was serious until when someone call me and said that was an earthquake in Haiti," Mavis Adderley told The Tribune.

The 75-year-old was at home with her husband at the time; both had no idea of the anticipated danger.

Mr Stubbs said another earthquake in the region is "very likely to occur again."

He explained that Haiti sits on the periphery of a fault line between the Caribbean and North American Tectonic plates, large slabs of crust that fit together like a puzzle and slide past one another slowly over time.

As the plates move together strain builds up along fault lines at the plates' boundaries culminating in an earthquake.

"Hence the reason why the potential always exists for earthquakes to occur, even in Jamaica (and other) neighbouring countries which also lie on the fault line," said Mr Stubbs.

While the Bahamas was spared Tuesday, our neighbours in Haiti felt the full brunt of Mother Nature's fury.

An estimated 3 million people were affected by the quake, homeless, seeking food, shelter and medical care. More than 150,000 are feared dead. Government crews have buried 7,000 corpses, taken from the streets, in mass graves, Haitian President René Preval told The Miami Herald.

Aid began trickling into the impoverished country on Thursday, but rubble blocked roads have hindered their distribution to the needy.

Governments around the world have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in support, with the United States pledging $100 million in aid.

The Bahamas Government has set up bank accounts at all of the country's commercial banks to accept financial donations for Haiti.