On November 18, 1929, just as the Great Depression was beginning to take hold around the world, a major earthquake rocked the Western North Atlantic. It occurred at 5:02 pm local time approximately 250 kilometers (150 miles) south of Newfoundland along the southern edge of the Grand Banks. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake was felt as far away as New York and Montreal. Aftershocks were also felt in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
It was not known at the time that a tsunami had been generated. Sediments that had been building up for thousands of years on the floor of the Laurentian Continental Slope and Rise broke loose, creating an underwater landslide that resulted in a tsunami. Approximately two and a half hours after the earthquake, the tsunami struck the southern end of the Burin Peninsula in Newfoundland as three main pulses. Reported tsunami wave heights were as high as 13 meters (42.6 feet). The tsunami was observed on the east coast of Canada and the U.S., in Bermuda, and on the east coast of Martinique in the Caribbean. It was also recorded on tide gauges as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, the Azores, and the west coast of Portugal.
Tsunami waves destroyed houses and other buildings near the Canadian shore, and damaged or sank many fishing boats in the Grand Banks area. With 28 lives lost, this 1929 event is the most tragic earthquake-related tsunami in Canadian history.
Aftermath
More than 40 local villages in southern Newfoundland were affected by the tsunami, with numerous homes, ships, businesses, livestock, and fishing gear destroyed. Total property losses were estimated at more than $1 million (1929 dollars).
The day after the tsunami, a winter storm blew sleet and snow into the devastated areas, making recovery efforts even more difficult than they already were given the absence of aid.
At the time, nobody outside the area was aware of the destruction. The only telegraph line from the Burin Peninsula had unfortunately gone out of service just prior to the earthquake. More significantly, the underwater landslide triggered by the earthquake snapped 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables. It took every available cable ship in the Atlantic almost a year to repair or replace all of the damaged cables. Over a decade later, it would be the pieces of these broken cables that would lead scientists to discover that a landslide had triggered the tsunami.
It took more than three days, but help finally arrived. In response to an SOS from a passing ship, the S.S. Meigle was dispatched from St. John's with doctors and nurses aboard, and arrived at Burin on the afternoon of November 22. Recovery assistance was also provided by the Red Cross, as well as the British and American governments.
Since the 1929 event, there has been a dramatic improvement in the understanding of the hazards associated with submarine landslides, and the tsunamis that they can generate. Scientists continue to study this event to learn more about the role of large sediment deposits in the occurrence of tsunamis. NCEI archives and assimilates tsunami, earthquake, and volcano data to support research, planning, response, and mitigation. Long-term data can be used to establish the history of natural hazard occurrences and help mitigate against future events. The natural hazards datasets are available through the HazEL (Hazardous Event Lookup) interface, developed by NCEI.
Reference: https://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/historic-historique/events/19291118-en.php
