{"id":246379,"date":"2026-11-03T00:19:43","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T06:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/why-kamchatkas-giant-earthquake-sent-a-smaller-tsunami-across-the-pacific"},"modified":"2026-11-03T00:19:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T06:19:43","slug":"why-kamchatkas-giant-earthquake-sent-a-smaller-tsunami-across-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/why-kamchatkas-giant-earthquake-sent-a-smaller-tsunami-across-the-pacific","title":{"rendered":"Why Kamchatka\u2019s giant earthquake sent a smaller tsunami across the Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In 2025, along parts of Kamchatka\u2019s coast in Russia, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake caused a tsunami to surge nearly 20 meters (65 feet) above sea level. Yet across the Pacific, its waves were much smaller than those produced by the region\u2019s great 9.0 earthquake in 1952. How could the tsunami climb so high near the source yet have a comparatively modest impact far away?<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/tsunami.ioc.unesco.org\/sites\/default\/files\/medias\/fichiers\/2025\/09\/1952.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">November 1952 quake<\/a> located close to Kamchatka sent destructive waves across the ocean. The resulting tsunami destroyed most of Severo-Kurilsk, a town in the Kuril Islands. Even in distant Hawaii, it wrecked boats and piers and demolished a bridge linking Hilo\u2019s shore to Coconut Island. Its destruction both near and far makes it a compelling comparison to the 2025 event.<\/p>\n<p>A new reconstruction of the later earthquake <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43247-026-04050-5\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Communications Earth &amp; Environment<\/i> by Stefano Lorito of Italy\u2019s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and colleagues points to what happened beneath the seabed. The earthquake\u2019s size mattered, but so did where the rocks moved\u2014a difference that helps explain the two tsunamis\u2019 contrasting effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2025, along parts of Kamchatka\u2019s coast in Russia, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake caused a tsunami to surge nearly 20 meters (65 feet) above sea level. Yet across the Pacific, its waves were much smaller than those produced by the region\u2019s great 9.0 earthquake in 1952. How could the tsunami climb so high near the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}