A major tsunami struck China’s southern coast in 1076 causing “drastic cultural decline,” Chinese researchers said, in a study with implications for a densely populated region boasting multiple coastal nuclear power plants.
There is a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting an earthquake in the Manila Trench sent a wall of water coursing into what is now China’s Guangdong Province about a thousand years ago.
Now scientists believe they have narrowed down the date to an exact year — 1076 — and say the new data should set alarm bells ringing over whether enough is being done to defend against future tsunamis.
“This study confirms the risk of tsunamis in the South China Sea,” the research teams from the University of Science and Technology and East China Normal University wrote in this month’s issue of Chinese Science Bulletin.
“Such risk should be considered in future planning and construction of nuclear power plant, harbor and petroleum reserve structures on the coastlines of China,” they said.
A number of nuclear power plants sit on China’s southern coast, including at Fuqing, Daya Bay and a soon-to-open plant at Taishan.
The wider area is also one of the world’s most densely populated regions and includes multiple major coastal cities such as Hong Kong, Macau, Xiamen and Quanzhou.
The vulnerability of nuclear power plants to seismic events has become a major cause for concern ever since a 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The Chinese research team first found evidence of a destructive historical wave on Lincoln Island (Hewu Island, 和五島) located in the middle of the South China Sea, in 2013.
They discovered rocks and corals that had been moved 200m from the shoreline and concluded only a major force of water could have been responsible.
Another team found shards of ceramics in tsunami sediment from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) on Nan Ao Island (南澳島), about 250km up the coast from Hong Kong’s eastern side.
East China Normal University professor Gao Shu (高抒) told Xinhua news agency that the southeast tip of the island used to be a town with official kilns for making porcelain.
Researchers struggled to find any archaeological artifacts from after the suspected wave until the later Ming dynasty.
They also found a shipwreck with 20,000 coins from around the time the tsunami might have struck.
“This cultural evidence indicates a drastic cultural decline caused by the tsunami,” they wrote.
China has begun moves to gather data in the South China Sea about potential tsunami threats, deploying early warning buoys off the Manila Trench last year.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS