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1906 Hong Kong Tsunami?

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  1. #1

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    1906 Hong Kong Tsunami?

    Just saw a friend post on facebook about a Tsunami that hit Hong Kong on September 18th, 1906 and supposedly killed 10,000 people. However, doing an internet search, I couldn't even find a Wikipedia page for this in English, just a few one-line "On this day in 1906" mentions, and a search in Chinese turned up a few semi-reputable forum posts and a small wikipedia entry, (about a typhoon, not a tsunami):
    丙午風災 - ç»´åŸºç™¾ç§‘ï¼Œè‡ªç”±çš „百科全书

    The HKO webpage also mentions that "Hong Kong has not been seriously affected by any tsunami in recorded history, with the Philippines Islands and Taiwan acting as an almost complete breakwater for such tsunamis in the Pacific". I find it hard to believe that such a major event happening in a major world city would go almost completely unrecorded. Does anyone have any more reputable information sources on the subject?


  2. #2

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    1906 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    According to this September 18 was the big day.....looks fishy to me!

  3. #3

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    http://www.wind.arch.t-kougei.ac.jp/.../hongkong2.pdf

    If you look at the references for the incident (page 55), you will find more links including some Legco minutes discussing this.

  4. #4

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    Okay, it was a typhoon, not a tsunami.


  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by bryant.english:
    Okay, it was a typhoon, not a tsunami.
    Many documents call this a storm surge - thats pretty close to a tsunami in my book.

    This one says 6.1m : http://math.usm.my/scstw3/downloads/ppt/ChauKT.pdf
    6.1m is a tsunami to me - you may call it potato.

    http://www.hko.gov.hk/publica/tnl/tnl035.pdf

    http://www.hko.gov.hk/publica/reprint/r734.pdf

  6. #6

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    I can also remember my parents telling me about the tidal wave as a result of Typhoon Wanda in 1962

    Typhoon Wanda


  7. #7

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    Also remember that in 1906 HK was not a major world city


  8. #8

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    That's what shocked us - according to another Wiki page 15,000 people, "mainly fisherman", were killed. What was the population of HK at that time?


  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Satay Sue:
    That's what shocked us - according to another Wiki page 15,000 people, "mainly fisherman", were killed. What was the population of HK at that time?
    As per Demographics of Hong Kong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the population in 1906 was 326,961. So that would make roughly 4.5% of the population killed...

  10. #10

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    Plenty of references to it in books.


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