Photo/Illutration Nobuhito Mori, professor of coastal disasters at Kyoto University’s Disaster Prevention Research Institute, checks for tsunami damage at a home in Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 6. (Ryo Sasaki)

An expert estimates that tsunami reached life-threatening heights as high as 5 meters in some areas of the Noto Peninsula spawned by the magnitude-7.6 quake on New Year’s Day. 

Nobuhito Mori, professor of coastal disasters at Kyoto University’s Disaster Prevention Research Institute, examined various sites with a team to reach the findings.

“It is clear that damage from the tsunami was localized,” he said. 

Between Jan. 5 and 7, Mori and his team visited the area affected by the earthquake and tsunami, including the Ishikawa Prefecture cities of Suzu and Wajima.

The members looked for signs of how high the tsunami reached before the debris was cleared from the damaged areas.

Iida Port in Suzu was one location severely damaged. Half of the wall of a building used by local firefighters as a temporary station was destroyed, leaving behind only the wooden framework. Fishing boats were washed ashore or capsized.

Team members checked a newspaper sales office located about 50 meters inland from the fire station. A brown line on the wall of the sales office marked how high the tsunami reached.

Using a measure and level gauge, the team calculated that the tsunami reached a height of about 3.7 meters.

The team estimated that a tsunami at least 4.7 meters high hit the Misakimachijike district of Suzu, which is close to the tip of the Noto Peninsula. Almost all homes in that district were damaged, some totally.

But while a tsunami as high as 5.1 meters reached the Akasaki and Shishizu districts of Shika on the west coast of the Noto Peninsula, the damage was limited because seawater only flowed within a very narrow band.

The team could not detect any flooding by tsunami north of Wajima’s Monzenmachikuroshimamachi district.

The type of earthquake and topography leads to differences in damage from tsunami, according to Mori.

The tsunami was highest along the two poles of the focus fault, mainly the northern part of Shika, the western part of Wajima and the northern tip of Suzu.

Mori said tsunami from a fault-type quake only developed within a very narrow area, in comparison to tsunami from a trench-type quake, such as the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. 

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