By LEON DROUIN KEITH
Associated Press Writer
 LOS
ANGELES (AP) -- A tsunami generated by a Southern California earthquake
could deliver 50-foot waves on the region's coastline with only
a few minutes' warning, according to a study focusing on what
has been a largely unstudied threat.
The University
of Southern California researchers who conducted the study, to
be presented at a geophysics conference Sunday, ran computer models
of earthquakes off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and found
they could trigger tsunamis powerful enough to send waves a half-mile
inland in some areas.
Researcher
and civil and environmental engineering professor Costas Synolakis
said it will take more research to figure out the likelihood of
a major tsunami in Southern California.
"It's
not something we can quantify easily ... it's a question that
has tormented us," he said. "It's like the San Andreas
Fault -- we know one day a big earthquake will hit, but we don't
know when."
"Personally,
I think that within our lifetime we'll see a tsunami" in
Southern California, Synolakis said.
If we do,
he stressed, "There's absolutely no reason to panic."
Beachgoers and coastal residents simply need to move to higher
ground when they feel an earthquake or see the ocean quickly recede.
"If you
move quickly away from the beach you survive; the further you
move, the better off you are," he said.
Tsunamis have
hit the area before, in 1812 in Santa Barbara and in 1927 in Lompoc,
according to the report, which is slated to be published in Geophysical
Research Letters early next year. It includes written accounts
of eyewitnesses to the 1812 event, who told of the sea rising
"like a high mountain" and said they had to move more
than a mile and a half inland.
Just a few
years ago, Synolakis said, tsunamis were thought to be solely
the product of earthquake-produced waves that travel thousands
of miles before hitting land. For instance Alaska earthquakes
triggered a tsunami that killed 140 people in Hilo, Hawaii, in
1946 and another in 1964 that hit Eureka.
Those assumptions
were shattered in a tragic way in 1998 when an earthquake off
Papua New Guinea triggered an underwater landslide and resulting
tsunami that killed 2,000 people.
Synolakis,
who led a National Science Foundation study of the Papua New Guinea
tsunami, said improved news coverage of natural disasters around
the world has helped researchers discover that tsunamis are more
common than they had thought.
Under the
direction of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
researchers around the country are analyzing tsunami risk in coastal
areas. Synolakis' team also worked with the state office of emergency
services to produce tsunami inundation maps of California coastal
areas.
"The
state been fairly proactive," Synolakis said, adding that
lifeguards, for instance, have been informed about tsunami warning
signs and how to respond to them.
Although Synolakis
said he is optimistic Southern Californians can get out of the
way of a tsunami, he added that the densely inhabited coastline
has a challenge less developed areas lack.
"Cars
become projectiles," he said, adding that a small, 8-foot
tsunami in Mexico was enough to move an RV a quarter of a mile
inland.
"But
if people are well educated .. and do not panic, people can be
saved," he said.
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