Tassie's tsunami action plan
MARK WORLEY
April 19, 2009 02:00am
TASMANIAN authorities are preparing a comprehensive action plan to warn the public about tsunamis.
Six at-risk communities on Tasmania's southeast and east coasts have been targeted by the State Emergency Service and Tasmania Police for information briefings about the tsunami threat.
The communities are Kingston-Blackmans Bay, Cremorne-Lauderdale, Orford-Triabunna, Bicheno-St Helens, Port Arthur and Bruny Island.
A set of scientific and historical reports about the threat of tsunamis is being collated by state and federal government bodies.
Though the reports are yet to be released, the SES has provided the Sunday Tasmanian with preliminary information which shows:
• About 16 "large-wave events" have been recorded anecdotally since European settlement in Tasmania 200 years ago.
• A scientific study of coastal areas in the South-East indicates two or three "tsunami-type events" may have hit Tasmanian shores in the past 4000-5000 years.
The new information about the threat of tsunamis to Tasmania's coastline comes just two weeks after nearly 50,000 copies of the pamphlet Tsunami Information for Recreational Boaters were mailed to members of Tasmania's boating community.
Thousands more Tsunami Awareness brochures have been distributed to councils and schools around Tasmania's coastal areas.
The pamphlets describe what people should do in the event of a tsunami.
The information also comes after the State Government referred to tsunamis in its response to Walker Corporation's controversial Ralphs Bay canal development proposal.
In its submission to the Resource Planning and Development Commission, the State Government said Walker's project documentation on tsunami hazards was insufficient.
But despite the intensive public awareness campaign, SES assistant director Chris Beattie says Tasmanians should not feel alarmed.
"The key message we are trying to get across is that communities can make themselves aware of the threat quite easily by reading one of the brochures or attending one of the information sessions," Mr Beattie said.
"We don't want people to feel alarmed or threatened. This is an unquantified risk we are looking at.
"When we talk about tsunamis, we tend to think of catastrophic walls of water similar to those witnessed during the Indian Ocean Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.
"There are a lot of smaller occurrences that may slip by without even being noticed.
"Clearly, the 2004 tsunami was a trigger for Australian authorities to prepare for the worst-case scenario and there has been a considerable amount of work done to develop the right emergency communication and education materials."
Mineral Resources Tasmania, Geoscience Australia and the New Zealand-based Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences have been involved in mapping the potential threat of tsunamis to Tasmania.
Mr Beattie, who has co-ordinated the research and emergency communication program for Tasmania, says anecdotal evidence had been compiled, showing about 16 "large-wave events" have been recorded since European settlement in Tasmania 200 years ago.
"Some of those have been as small as a rise of 35cm in the water at Fortescue Bay, while others have been old reports of people getting washed out to sea," Mr Beattie said.
"We have to remember a lot of these reports are old and very hard to confirm."
Mr Beattie also said MRT had drilled a number of holes in southeastern Tasmania -- including at areas on Bruny Island and in the Clarence Municipality -- to study possible remnants of previous tsunamis.
"Scientists looked in areas where fossils and other evidence seemed to be out of place, when compared against the usual tidal flows," he said.
"Then they were able to carbon date when that evidence may have been deposited.
"Preliminary evidence shows there may have been two or three potential tsunamigenic events to hit Tasmania in the past 4000-5000 years. In saying that, there may be other things at play which caused the evidence to end up where it did."
The first of six information sessions, at Kingston-Blackmans Bay, was to be held in May but has been postponed until later in the year.
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