Abstract
Historical documents in Korea and China report abnormal waves in the sea and rivers close to the date of the 1707 Hoei earthquake, which occurred in the Nankai Trough, off southwestern Japan. This indicates that the tsunami caused by the Hoei earthquake might have reached Korea and China, which suggests a potential hazard in Korea from large earthquakes in the Nankai Trough. We conducted tsunami simulations to study the details of tsunamis in Korea caused by large earthquakes. Our results showed that the Hoei earthquake (Mw 8.8) tsunami reached the Korean Peninsula about 200 min after the earthquake occurred. The maximum tsunami height was ~0.5 m along the Korean coast. The model of the Hoei earthquake predicted a long-lasting tsunami whose highest peak arrived 600 min later after the first arrival near the coastline of Jeju Island. In addition, we conducted tsunami simulations using physics-based scenarios of anticipated earthquakes in the Nankai subduction zone. The maximum tsunami height in the scenarios (Mw 8.5–8.6) was ~0.4 m along the Korean coast. As a simple evaluation of larger possible tsunamis, we increased the amount of stress released by the earthquake by a factor of two and three, resulting in scenarios for Mw 8.8 and 8.9 earthquakes, respectively. The tsunami height increased by 0.1–0.4 m compared to that estimated by the Hoei earthquake.
Highlights
There have been five observed tsunami events on the Korean Peninsula since the 1900s, when instrumental records began
We described the characteristics of tsunamis caused by the Nankai Trough earthquakes and the associated risks in Korea
The Hoei earthquake tsunami and historical documentation in Korea Our simulation results using the Hoei earthquake source model produced a maximum tsunami height along the southern coast of Jeju Island of ~0.5 m, whereas it was Variation in the maximum tsunami height due to the difference in the stress drop We consider that the physics-based scenarios in our analysis are probable in the future but do not represent the maximum earthquake that could possibly occur in the Nankai Trough region (Hyodo et al 2014)
Summary
There have been five observed tsunami events on the Korean Peninsula since the 1900s, when instrumental records (e.g., tidal gauge) began. All tsunamis were caused by earthquakes occurring in Japan (Fig. 1). The first tsunami was observed on August 2, 1940, and was generated by the 1940 Shakotan-oki earthquake (Mw 7.5; Satake 1986). The earthquake did not result in any fatalities in Korea but did destroy houses and fishing vessels. The second tsunami was caused by the 1964 Niigata earthquake (Mw 7.5; Satake and Abe 1983), and there was no damage. The most destructive tsunami was generated by the 1983 Akita-oki earthquake (Mw 7.7; Fukuyama and Irikura 1986). One person was killed and two people went missing in Korea due to this tsunami
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