March 8, 1889 Tsunami: Tonga

The island of Tonga was recently visited by a tidal wave. It swept in from the east at about 4 p.m. on the 8th ult., but fortunately broke on the Iiku or windward side of the island, the side which almost invariably is protected by a fiat shore-reef. An examination afterwards made of the liku showed that the waves had attained fully the height of 25ft above ordinary high water- mark, and had made a clean sweep of trees, shrubs, &c., to that height along the coast for miles at the Iiku. Behind Faleloa -another town - the water had not risen quite as high, but had had strength enough to carry rocks five or six tons in weight from the lower beach, and to lift them up on to the top of an abrupt rise of 15ft or 20ft. At other points of the coast the waves had been destructive to perhaps the height of 15ft, sometimes washing away points of land and forming new beaches, as on the neighboring island of Lifuka, where the graveyards on the windward side of the island were swept away. It was a mercy, a correspondent says, that the waters rose no higher. Another 10ft of a rise and the whole of Foa -which is one of the highest of the islands - would have been under water, and on the lower and flatter islands the inhabitants must all have perished. (reference #11629)

The Tonga correspondent of the Suva Times writes from Haabai :-" Doubts having been expressed as to the correctness of the estimate given by me in a former letter as to the height reached by tidal waves on the island of Fua during the gales of 7th and 8th March, accurate scientific measurement by three gentlemen demonstrate that they reached the extraordinary height of 36ft. above ordinary high-water mark. The waves could not have been caused by the gale simply, which was merely a heavy blow from the S.E., but must have been created by earthquake or other upheaval some distance from the group. The waves inland during the gale of 16th March, when all the ships of war at anchor in the harbour of Apia, Samoa, were wrecked, are reported as reaching, on the island of Savaii, where the greatest damage on shore was done, to 15ft. above high-water mark only."(reference #11628)