Loading

  • 21 Aug, 2019

  • By, Wikipedia

1979 Nice Events
The Nice tsunami of 1979 came on October 16. Two tsunamis struck the coast near Nice, accompanied by a landslide at the Nice Airport, and an aseismic submarine landslide. The two waves struck the coast between the Italian border and the town of Antibes (60 miles; 96 km). They reached 3 m high near Nice and 3.5 m at La Salis (Antibes) and decreased in amplitude from there.

Causes

The origin of these events has been a subject of academic and judicial debate. One hypothesis said that it was the landslide at the Nice airport; while the other stated that it was an underwater landslide.

A 0.15 km slide took place off Nice airport while constructing the fill of the new airport, perhaps as a consequence of this work. This landslide would have caused the first tsunami. The material from this slide could have caused a submarine slide that would have caused the second tsunami.

In the second hypothesis, the major natural submarine landslide (~8.7 km) that occurred offshore Nice caused a tsunami which would have caused a landslide of the fill of the new airport. This landslide caused another tsunami.

Consequences

Casualty estimates range between 8 and 23. At the construction site, the collapsing fill killed seven people.

The tsunamis inundated a 20-mile section of the coast. The water travelled up to 150 m inland. Eleven people were swept away in Nice and one in Antibes. The airport works were finished, but this event forestalled the construction of a new port for Nice.

References

  1. ^ Allaby, M. (2004). A Chronology of Weather. Infobase Publishing.
  2. ^ Sahal, Alexandre; Lemahieu, Anne (2010). "The 1979 nice airport tsunami: mapping of the flood in Antibes". Natural Hazards. 56 (3): 833–840. doi:10.1007/s11069-010-9594-6. ISSN 0921-030X. S2CID 128751536.
  3. ^ Lee, Homa J.; Locat, Jacques; Desgagns, Priscilla; Parsons, Jeffrey D.; McAdoo, Brian G.; Orange, Daniel L.; Puig, Pere; Wong, Florence L.; Dartnell, Peter; Boulanger, Eric (2007). "Submarine Mass Movements on Continental Margins". Continental Margin Sedimentation. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp. 213–274. doi:10.1002/9781444304398.ch5. ISBN 978-1-4443-0439-8.
  4. ^ Seed, H. B. (1988). The landslide at the Port of Nice on October 16, 1979. Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California.
  5. ^ Nisbet, Euan G.; Piper, David J. W. (1998). "Giant submarine landslides". Nature. 392 (6674): 329–330. Bibcode:1998Natur.392..329N. doi:10.1038/32765. ISSN 0028-0836.
  6. ^ Rana, S. V. S. (2007). Essentials of ecology and environmental science. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.
  7. ^ Dudley, W. C., & Lee, M. (1998). Tsunami!. University of Hawaii Press.

43°38′47″N 7°12′57″E / 43.6464°N 7.2157°E / 43.6464; 7.2157

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1979_Nice_tsunami&oldid=1185634597"