Tidal Wave slammed North Korea´s N Pyongan beach

2.000 flood casualties and 100 dead!

On March 7th a tidal wave hit Soehan Bay on the West Sea, which is bounded by Cholsan, Yongcheon and Sunchon in North Pyongan, leaving 2 thousand flood casualties and around 1 hundred dead.

Many were gathering sea shells, according to several sources in North Korea who said the news was released late on instructions to cover up the damage.

Why did they want to cover this? Because they did not warn the fishermen?

The damage done by the giant wave came in a flash and was worsened by the lack of weather forecasting and early warning systems.

North Korean authority has not informed the outside world of the tidal wave.

Source: please, follow this link to read the full news

I am so sorry for the people who were trying to make living by collecting sea shells and drowned...

I just wonder, when tide rises, is it usual to come unexpectedly as a huge tidal wave, able to produce such a devastation?

No, it is far from usual. I live on a boat on a tidal river, with a larger tidal range than that in SE Asia, and there are only a few factors that can cause a genuine tidal wave, none of which would necessarily apply to such a small area.

First you have the real TIDAL waves, which are only created by tidal effects combined with certain geographical features. An example of this is the Severn Bore (www.severn-bore.co.uk...).

The second is a storm surge, such as the one that so tragically swamped New Orleans, where the low pressure in a storm system literally sucks up a bulge of water and, when coinciding with a rising tide, can come ashore much like a tidal wave.

Thirdly there are undersea events, such as earthquakes (as in the SE Asian Tsunami) or underwater land-slides, which can displace a huge amount of water and can affect a small area. This is probably the most likely cause here.

Last there are conventional land-slides, where an eroded cliff drops into the sea, sending a tidal wave out that can be hundreds of metres high with a relatively short wavelength resulting in a literal wall of water coming ashore. There don't seem to be any land masses large enough off-shore from the affected area in N Korea, but a wave would not have to be very high to swamp people on a large tidal mud-flat. Look what happened to the cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay on a normal (for that part of the world) rising tide. 18 people died. news.bbc.co.uk...

If only N Korea were not so isolated the early warning systems now in place in that area could have saved a hundred lives.

Unfortunately USGS does not keep it's less powerful quake records easily found on the web it would seem, and I can't get the pages up. However, I can get the mention of it from the Quake watch thread, so here it is

the quake near Taiwan would have caused this, but for a Magnitude 5.1, it seems a long shot:



And, I agree it is sad that they were trying to make a living when this happened.

Thanks for your answers.

I have been surfing the net now and found the following:

Magnitude mb 4.4
Region KOREA STRAIT
Date time 2007-06-07 at 08:22:55.0 UTC
Location 34.91 N ; 130.61 E
Depth 260 km
Distances 110 km NW Shimonoseki (pop 245,786 ; local time 17:22 2007-06-07)
80 km NW Nagato (pop 23,101 ; local time 17:22 2007-06-07)
Source: EMSC