|
By Kaleem Omar
KARACHI: In the small hours of the morning on November 28, 1945, a massive earthquake occurred in the Arabian Sea off the Balochistan coast. The quake triggered a huge tsunami that caused great damage to the entire Makran coastal region. More than 4,000 people were killed on the Makran Coast by both the earthquake and the tsunami, which reached a height of 40 feet in some Makran fishing ports. The death toll would undoubtedly have been much higher had the region not been so sparsely populated.
The quake, which occurred at 03:26 IST (Indian Standard Time), measured 8.0 on the Richter scale. It was centred 87.1 kilometres south-southwest (SSW) of Churi in Balochistan , or 97.6 km SSW of Pasni, or 98.5 km SSW of Gwadar, or 408 km SSW of Karachi, or 465 km east-northeast of Muscat, Oman.
This was the last major tsunami-generating earthquake in the Arabian Sea. . The quake was severely felt along the Makran Coast and in the Las Bela district. It was strong in Karachi and lasted 30 seconds. The clock on the building of the Karachi Municipal Corporation stopped. People were reported to have been thrown out of their beds in the city.
The cable link between Karachi and Muscat was interrupted. The Cape Monze lighhouse, 72 km from Karachi, was damaged. It was also strongly felt at Manora Island near Karachi Harbour. The 80-foot-high lighthouse on Manora was damaged in the quake and a couple of pounds of mercury spilt. It was felt moderately in Panjgur, a small town in southern Balochistan famous for producing some of the best dates in the world.
The quake was not felt in Lahore, thought it was felt as far away to the east as the Indian town of Kanpur in the United Provinces. The shock was recorded by observatories at New Delhi and Calcutta (now called Kolkata).
The quake was also characterised by the eruption of several mud valcanos, a few miles off the Makran Coast, which are a common feature in Balochistan. Three mud volcanos, which which are still active today and continue to spew mud, can be seen from a point three km to the west of the new Mekran Coastal Highway, about 50 km before the Hingol River crossing.
The largest of the three volcanos is called Chandragup and rises to a height of about 300 ft. The other two, Ramagup and Ranagup, are smaller.
The 1945 earthquake led to the formation of four small islands, off the Balochistan coast. A large volume of gas that erupted from one of the islands, sent flames leaping hundreds of metres into the sky.
The most significant aspect of the earthquake was the tsunami that it triggered. The tsunami caused great damage to the entire Makran coastal region. The fishing village of Khudi, some 48 km west of Karachi, was completely obliterated. All the inhabitants and their huts were washed away. At Dabo creek, 12 fishermen were swept into the sea. There was similar loss of life along other sections of the Makran coast, as well as along the Iran coast further to the west and Oman.
The towns of Pasni and Ormara were badly affected. Both were reportedly underwater after the tsunami. Pasni’s postal and telegraph offices, government buildings and rest houses were destroyed. Many people were washed away. The telegraphic communications to these two communities were also cut.
Pasni, today, is the site of a commercial fishing port, built by a Belgian construction firm in the 1980s at a cost of Rs 1.8 billion. Ormara is now the site of a Pakistan navy base. It was built by a Turkish company firm in the 1990s at a cost of Rs 4.5 billion, and became fully operational in 1997.
The new 650-km Makran Coastal Highway, linking Karachi to Gwadar via Ormara and Pasni, was built by the Pakistan army’s Frontier Works Organisation at a cost of Rs 11.8 billion. Several sections of the highway were badly damaged in February’s unusually heavy rains. According to the FWO, repairs to the highway will cost an estimated Rs 450 million and will take six months to complete.
The 1945 tsunami was also recorded at Gwadar and Muscat. In those days, Gwadar belonged to the ruler of Muscat and Oman. The Portugese attacked and burnt Gwadar in 1651; and at the end of the next century it was taken by the Khans of Kalat and was handed over by Nasir Khan I to Sultan Said, a brother of the ruler of Muscat, for his maintenance. Along with about 768 square km of adjoining territory, it remained in the hands of the ruler of Muscat and Oman until 1958, when it was bought from him by the Pakistan government.
At Karachi, the 1945 tsunami arrived from the direction of Clifton and Ghizri. It ran along the oil installations at Keamari and flooded several compounds. The waves were 6.5 feet high in Karachi. The first wave was recorded at 5.30 a.m. on November 28, the next at 7.00 a.m. and the last at 8.15 a.m. The last wave was the biggest. Luckily, there was no damage either to the port or to boats in Karachi Harbour.
The tsunami had a height of 36-38 feet in Kutch, Gujarat. At 8.15 a.m., it was observed on Saisette Island near Bombay (Mumbai). It was recorded in Bombay Harbour, Versova (now called Andheri), Haji Ali (now called Mahalaxmi), Juhu and Danda. At Versova, 5 people (4 women and 1 man) who were fishing were washed away. At Haji Ali, 6 people were swept into the sea. At Danda and Juhu, several fishing boats were torn off their moorings.
The tsunami did not do any damage to Bombay Harbour. Most people who witnessed the tsunami in Bombay said that it rose like the tide coming in, but much more rapidly. The height of the tsunami in Bombay was nearly 7 feet. Fifteen people were washed away in Bombay.
Although not as frequent in the Pacific Ocean, tsunamis generated in the Indian Ocean pose a great threat to all the countries of the region. The most vulnerable are: Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Myanmar, Maldives, Somalia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Madagaskar, Mauritius, Renunion Island, Syechelles, South Africa and Australia.
The great earthquake of December 26, 2004 off the west coast of Northern Sumatra generated the most devastating tsunami in history. It killed more than 275,000 people (225,000 in Indonesia alone), and left unprecedented devastation along its path across the Bay of Bengal and the entire Indian Ocean.
Due to the location of the December 26 earthquake far to the east of the Indian landmass, the direction in which the tsunami travelled west across the Indian Ocean was some 2,000 km south of the Balochistan coast. So Pakistan escaped the death and destruction caused by the tsunami. But Pakistan may not be so lucky next time - as shown by what happened when the 1945 tsunami hit Balochistan’s coast.
Given the experience of 1945, Pakistan certainly cannot afford to be complacent about the outcome of possible future tsunamis, and needs to urgently join hands with other littoral nations in speedily putting in place a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea region, along the lines of the system that has been in place in the Pacific Ocean for many years.
Although not as destructive as the December 26, 2004 event was, many more tsunamis have been generated by large earthquakes in subduction zones bordering the Indian Ocean and by smaller-magnitude events along the Central Indian and Carlsberg mid-oceanic ridges.
The historical record shows that major tsunamis occurred in the Indian Ocean in 1524, 1762, 1819, 1847, 1941, 1945, 1977 and in 2004. Additionally, the August 26, 1883 Ultra Plinian eruption and collapse of the Krakatoa volcano in the Sunda Strait - between Java and Sumatra - generated a huge tsunami that killed 37,000 people in the islands of Java and Sumatra.
There may also have been additional destructive tsunamis in the Indian Ocean that have not been properly documented. For example, villagers of Simeulue Island, off the coast of Sumatra, speak of a destructive tsunami in 1907 that killed thousands of people.
Several tectonic settings and interactions result in tsunamigenic earthquakes in the Indian Ocean. The Indian plate’s eastern boundary is a diffuse zone of seismicity and deformation, characterised by extensive faulting and numerous earthquakes that can generate destructive tsunamis.
To the west, similar interaction of the Indian plate with the Arabian and Iranian microplates of the Eurasian block, has created an active subduction zone along Pakistan’s Mekran coast. A major fault in this region has produced several tsunamigenic earthquakes recently and in the distant geologic past. This major fault is of the same character as the West Coast fault along the coast of Maharashtra, India - which is also a region that can produce tsunamigenic earthquakes.
Thus, Pakistan’s coastal region sits, so to speak, in the tsunamigenic crosshairs between these faults. | 
