Tidal Waves Receding in Pacific But Alaskan Coast Still Taking Pounding
The following is United Press’ coverage of the April 1, 1946, Alaskan earthquake and it’s reporting on the subsequent tsunami which devastated parts of Hawaii, resulting in more than 165 casualties.
HAWAII IS HIT HARDEST WITH 300 CASUALTIES
HONOLULU, April 2, 1946 (UNITED PRESS) — Tidal waves hammered the Alaskan coast today, sweeping down on the Dutch Harbor naval base in the second day of oceanic turmoil which devastated some areas of Hawaii where 300 persons were reported dead or missing.
Earth tremors shook the Aleutian chain early today. Navy officials described it as a two-minute quake of low intensity.
Four hours later, about 4:30 a.m. (Dutch Harbor time) Dutch Harbor naval officials said a tidal wave hit the naval base there, snapping a ferry cable but causing no other damage or casualties.
The original surge of water, churned up by submarine earthquakes, smashed against the coasts of North and South American, the Hawaiian and other tiny Pacific islands, yesterday.
At least 140 persons were known dead and the damage was expected to run into many millions of dollars. A Hawaiian official said at least 300 persons were dead or missing.
At San Francisco, the Coast Guard reported that heavy waves — which it called “tidal waves” — were running along the coast line at five minute intervals in the San Francisco area. The Coast Guard said the waves were four to five feet high, and began hitting the coast in the Point Arena area every three or four minutes starting at 8:15 a.m., PST.
The tidal waves extended 7,000 miles up and down the Pacific, from the Aleutians to the western coast of South America. Dispatches from Chile said that high waves crushed small boats and destroyed coastal installations. Residents were told to flee to higher ground.
Seismologists reported that a total of eight earthquakes were recorded during the rush of the tidal waves. The last tremor was recorded at Fordham University in New York shortly after 1 a.m. EST today.
All persons in the town of Kodiak and in beach villages already had been evacuated to higher ground. Jacobs said late observations indicated that the initial force of the tidal wave had been spent.
But the Hawaiian Islands had suffered their worst disaster since the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Hundreds were injured and property damage ran into the millions of dollars.
Hilo Is Scene Of Desolation
(Editors Note: The following eyewitness dispatch from Hilo, Hawaii, was written for the United Press by a veteran Honolulu advertiser reporter who also covered several central Pacific campaigns as a war correspondent for the United Press.)
BY RAY COLL, JR.
HILO, Hawaii, April 2. (U.P.) The destruction in this once-peaceful resort city reminds of scenes I saw while touring shelltorn Guam or Okinawa at the height of the war.
Hilo today is a stricken city in every sense of the word.
The destruction along Kamehameha Avenue, Hilo’s “bund” is indescribable.
All the buildings of the Makai (sea) side have been lifted bodily and dumped against those on the Mauka (mountain) side.
Down through the Waiakea district and out towards the airport it is the same. Dead goats lie tethered in yards. Stray dogs run aimlessly about mingled with chickens and ducks.
The devastated area has been placed out of bounds for army personnel. The army is in complete control. Armed guards are posted at every intersection.
I had to obtain a pass at the police station in order to visit restricted area.
The famed Naniloa Hotel has suffered considerable damage. The spacious dining room which is on the ground floor facing the sea is badly wrecked. Several rooms on the same level are badly water soaked, broken and filled with debris tossed up by the tidal wave.
The swimming pier and boathouse have been washed away, but the hotel is otherwise intact.
Guests have been forced to evacuate because the lighting system and other utilities were knocked out by the waves.
Scouting planes from Kodiak and bases in the Hawaiian chain ranged far out at sea to check progress of the new tidal waves, which started yesterday in the wake of a submarine earthquake in the vicinity of Unimak Island.
The tidal waves moved over a 4,000 mile arc, and caused death and destruction in the Aleutians, the Hawaiians and along the western coast of the United States.
The toll was extremely heavy on the island of Hawaii. An estimated 10,000 persons were made homeless as their beachfront dwellings were smashed by the onrushing water.
Gov. Ingram Stainback invoked the Hawaii defense act, giving police more authority to control the islands to prevent looting.
The mayor of Hilo, capital of the island of Hawaii, reported in a broadcast picked up by the Navy in Honolulu that 300 persons were killed or missing.
Communications between Hilo and Honolulu were disrupted, however, and many of the reports were fragmentary. The great naval base at Pearl Harbor, protected by two arms of land, was not damaged.
Navy dispatches received at Honolulu said the great waves hit Midway and the Johnston Islands, causing “major damage to communication facilities,” but there was no loss of life. The Navy said new equipment was being sent to Midway and Johnston.
It was feared that the death toll would mount during the day as rescue workers dug into the ruins of the wrecked homes on Hawaii. The number of persons injured already totals several hundreds.
At least 140 persons were known to be dead or missing in the three areas swept yesterday by tidal waves. There were 79 known dead in the islands and upwards of 50 missing, 10 dead in the Aleutians and one on the California coast which also was battered by heavy seas.
Fears were felt that still more tidal waves might hit the Hawaiians. In Honolulu, Lt. Cmdr. William D. Patterson, head of the Hawaiian Coast and Geodetic Survey, said the tidal wave heading toward Kodiak might be traveling as fast as 300 knots and that new walls of water ay also be racing toward Hawaii.
Hawaii island suffered the worst blow. Dwellings and warehouses along the north coast were smashed. Great quantities of food were destroyed. At Hilo, four-foot boulders rolled ashore in the swirling wall of water. The town’s gas works was put out of commission. Damage also was widespread on Oahu Island where other thousands were made homeless.
The State Militia and U.S. Army troops were on emergency duty and squadrons of P-61 fighter planes were sent out to search for new tidal waves and flash back warning signals.
The known dead or mission included 72 at Hilo; ten at Laupahoehoe, 30 miles north of Hilo; seven on Oahu; 15 at Kauai; 26 on Maui Island; ten on Unimak Island in the Aleutians; and one at Santa Cruz, Calif.
High waves were reported along most of the west coast of the United States during yesterday afternoon. Wharves, resort places, navy installations and ship moorings were battered. An abandoned Coast Guard barracks at Half Moon Bay, Cal., 30 miles south of San Francisco, were washed away. Hundreds of small boats were torn looks from their moorings.
With communications badly disrupted, the fate of hundreds of ships at sea was not yet determined. One vessel, the Brigham Victory out of Puget Sound, Wash., sent word that she was “trapped” by the tidal wave between the breakwater and the dock at Hilo.
The huge waves were believed to have originated in the vicinity of Unimak Island in the Aleutians. Reports said that the new waves were traveling north and east.
Reports on the progress of the wall of water heading toward Kodiak were being sent from Anchorage. The navy also ordered all persons on Middleton Island, in the Gulf of Alaska off the southeastern tip of the Alaskan mainland, to move to higher ground or return to the mainland.
Army bombers and transport planes were standing by at Elmendorf Field, ready to fly over other danger area. Officials said that if the wave eddied from Kodiak to Cooks Inlet it may combine with high tides and throw tons of ice into Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.
The first great wave crashed into the Hawaiian Islands yesterday at 12:14 p.m. EST, and subsequent waves followed in short intervals. Water swirled through the streets of beach towns and villages. Only concrete buildings escaped heavy damage.
The earthquake which touched off the tidal waves was believed to have occurred near the Aleutian Deep, a 15,000 foot chasm in the ocean south of Shumagin Islands, part of the Aleutians. Seismologists said the earth shocks probably traveled through the seas at more than 400 miles an hour. The earth tremors were recorded in all parts of the world.
EMERGENCY AID
HONOLULU, April 2 (U.P.) — The Army, Navy and Red Cross gave emergency shelter and relief supplies today to an estimated 10,000 persons left homeless by tidal waves that smashed the shores of the Hawaiian Islands.
Officials also took precautions against an anticipated return of the tidal waves. One Navy spokesman said that in view of the new wave racing toward Kodiak Island, it was possible another wall of water would hit the Hawaiian chain.
Refugees driven from their beach homes, which were battered into driftwood by the relentless waves, huddled in army and navy barracks on Oahu and Hawaii Islands.
Some wore only their underwear, hastily covered by topcoats as they ran, and were given army field jackets and G.I. trousers to keep them warm.
Four persons, possibly a group of missing school teachers, were spotted adrift on a raft off Laupahoehoe on the north short of Hawaii Island. A navy patrol bomber dropped rescue equipment to the raft, then circled it while surface craft hastened to pick up the survivors.
The school teachers were reported missing when their two cottages were swept out to sea.
Howard Elliott, executive director of the Hawaiian territory Red Cross, said there were sufficient emergency supplies in the Islands to handle the homeless and injured.
Army bulldozers, the kind that once ran over Japanese defenses, charged into the wreckage of homes along roads on northeastern Oahu and cleared paths through which army trucks carried the homeless to emergency shelter.
Homes at Kailua on southeastern Oahu were flooded several feet deep. At Hilo, on Hawaii Island, boulders four feet in diameter were rolled inland by the surging waters, demolishing store fronts along the shore.
A food shortage developed among the refugees at the Hilo naval air station, but was eased Monday afternoon when the army landed 30 tons of emergency foodstuffs. All canned milk was requisitioned for babies.
A Navy pilot riding high over the Bering Sea radioed that he sighted a huge wave, traveling about 35 miles an hour, near the air base at Naknek, Alaska. He said it seemed to be heading for the rugged Kvichak coast on the north side of Alaska, threatening dozens of little communities.
Reports of the blows at the Alaska Peninsula came as the first waves appeared to be receding. Alert warning had been continued, however, at Kodiak off Alaska and in the Hawaiian Islands. Read Adm. Ralph Jacobs, commander of the Alaskan Sea frontier, said “emergency warnings” were given all personnel.
Late reports from Alaska said that no new waves were sighted yet today south of the Alaskan Peninsula. They said the new tremors seems weaker and possibly would not reach Hawaii.
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