WATCH: Model Shows Earthquake Would Swamp Seattle Under 20-foot Tsunami in 3 Minutes

Seattle skyline (Getty)
Getty

An earthquake in Puget Sound would swamp the city of Seattle, Washington, with a 20-foot tsunami within three minutes, according to a report released Thursday by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

The Seattle Times reported:

Models showed a tsunami following a magnitude 7.5 quake would inundate Seattle’s shoreline under more than 20 feet of water, and reach parts of Bainbridge Island, Elliott Bay and Alki Point within 3 minutes.

The new study used newer data on topography and elevation, spanning a larger area, than did previous studies of the Seattle, Tacoma and Everett areas published in 2003, 2009 and 2014 respectively.

In the study, researchers from the department’s Washington Geological Survey division used projections modeled after the last major earthquake under the Seattle fault — a magnitude 7.5 that occurred about 1,100 years ago — to estimate the height, arrival time and inland reach of a subsequent tsunami if, or when, the disaster repeats itself.

The department also tweeted a simulation and released videos of simulated effects of an earthquake and tsunami:

The new study is available here.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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