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Mystery of deadly Indonesian tsunami cracked using social-media videos

The findings expose the deficiencies of tsunami warning systems, as well as highlighting the power of citizen science.
  1. Michael Marshall
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A super-fast tsunami that ravaged an Indonesian island last year, killing thousands, was almost certainly triggered by underwater landslides, according to a detailed reconstruction of the disaster using surveillance-camera and video footage harvested from amateur posts on YouTube and other social media.

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Nature 569, 463-464 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01544-5

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 20 May 2019: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that tsunami warning systems are triggered by changes in sea level rise. In fact they are triggered by seismometers.

References

  1. Carvajal, M., Araya‐Cornejo, C., Sepúlveda, I., Melnick, D. & Haase, J. S. Geophys. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082578 (2019).

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  2. Socquet, A., Hollingsworth, J., Pathier, E. & Bouchon, M. Nature Geosci. 12, 192–199 (2019).

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  3. Bao, H. et al. Nature Geosci. 12, 200–205 (2019).

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