Earthquake felt underwater

[bleach]

We did not notice any behavior changes in the fish. We were looking at each other, wide eyed, with a "what the heck was that" look on our faces!

No one could confirm at the shop whether they felt it, one person said maybe.

Brian

 

[diver 85]

Also, you were one of the 'lucky' ones...I talked to my son last nite about this & he said in over 3.5 years of living there & 3400+ dives on Roatan, he did not feel one UW--remembers about 4 times it happening, mostly @ nite- one right before leaving out on a nite dive ie 'came close'......

 

[rollerboi]

Maybe one of the oceanographers on here can explain more precisely, but I would guess the dangers to a diver of a tsunami wave depend on some combination of wave length and open ocean wave height (determined ocean depth and the magnitude of the fault movement), the local depth at the dive site and how fast the ocean bottom is rising as it approaches shore (including how far out the continental shelf starts, if the epicentre was beyond that). Depending on the bottom topography and depth, it could be really benign or it could be really ugly.

Right, to my understanding the vertical uplift would occur above the epicenter of the quake. And it all depends on the topography of the bottom. But I defer to those more well versed in academia than I.

 

[nannymouse]

From what I understand, the difference between a normal wave and a tsunami is not the height, but the length. To compare, a wave of the height that devistated indonesia a few years back is only about 100 to 150 feet long, whereas that tsunami was something like 4 miles long. It's not so much that the wave hits the shore, but that it keeps coming, and coming, and coming...

Also, the injuries and fatalities are not caused by being in the water (most people can tread water or swim for quite some time), but by being slammed into other objects, or crushed between debris and stationary objects, or by being held under.

If I was offshore, I would try to stay there, and plan to try to get around to the back side of something solid when I was carried ashore. If I was on the beach, I would go up or in or both.

The hotel across the street from my house is a tsunami refuge assemblly area,so I guess I'm OK. -N