Every year on November 5, in Severo-Kurilsk, the memory of those killed in the terrible disaster of 1952 is honored. Then the tsunami waves washed away the entire regional center. As they calculated later, the unbridled element claimed the lives of 2,336 local residents. Someone was simply washed away into the sea, and the fact of death was established only when checking the lists of the population. By all standards, it was an uncommon tsunami, says Viktor Kaistrenko, a leading researcher at the Tsunami Laboratory of the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics (IMGiG), Ph.D. The element, like a giant skating rink, passed through the Northern Kuriles and southern Kamchatka, practically destroying Severo-Kurilsk and other coastal settlements in this territory. The 1952 tsunami was transoceanic, and waves of unprecedented magnitude reached all the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
A giant wave, which washed away Severo-Kurilsk from the face of the earth, arose from a strong earthquake. It, in turn, happened in the ocean, and its magnitude exceeded 9 points. Over the past 200 years, according to the data available to scientists, there have been only 10 such earthquakes with a source in the ocean. Nine of them were registered on the periphery of the Pacific Ocean, which is not surprising: here is the most tectonically active zone of the planet, the so-called Pacific Ring ... Just as powerful was the recent terrible tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which struck at the end of 2004 on the coasts of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and other countries.
However, for a long time information about the tragedy of November 5, 1952 was hidden under the headings "Secret" or "For official use." Such was the time then. It was the last year of Stalin's life.
These data began to be declassified only in the 90s. At the same time, for the first time, they started talking about the construction of a memorial to those killed in the regional center. The most detailed description, hot on the trail, is contained in the report of the Pacific Fleet Hydrographic Expedition, based in Kamchatka. Three of her ships were in the Northern Kuriles the very next day. Volcanologist A. Svyatlovsky landed with them on the islands. A week later, scientists from Sakhalin arrived there, from the Complex Research Institute (as the IMGiG was then called). In the 90s, the already well-known professor A. Svyatlovsky handed over his archives to V. Kaistrenko. V. Kaistrenko emphasizes that these data are very valuable for studying that tsunami.
Information about the North Kuril tsunami of 1952 was partially published in open scientific journals only in 1957–1959. The vultures on most documents did not allow writing in more detail about the tsunami and conducting large-scale research. It is these documents that now form the basis of future scientific research, and are also a good reminder of how inattention to the seismic features of Sakhalin and the Kuriles can turn out.
FROM PUSH TO FIRST WAVE
So, this is the picture emerging from the archival documents.
The night was moonlit. The destructive wave was preceded by an earthquake. It happened at night at about 5 am Kamchatka time. People got used to constant tremors, but these were stronger than usual and were accompanied by an underground rumble. Residents jumped out of their houses, but the earthquake seemed to have calmed down. Moreover, there was no severe destruction. The anxiety subsided, but, as it turned out, not for long ...
The first wave came in about 20 minutes ... Its height was 5–8 meters. As it turned out later, not everyone knew what a tsunami was and how it was related to an earthquake.
The first blow struck the ships standing in the port bucket. The moon well illuminated the scene of the unfolding tragedy. The tsunami just overwhelmed them. Some, being thrown into the sea, were able to stay afloat and did not drown. According to the testimony of Lev Dombrovsky, the captain of one of them said that he did not believe in this before: their tank landing ship was torn off the anchor and mooring lines like a feather, literally spun and thrown into the bay, but the ship did not receive any damage and then participated in saving people.
From the memoirs of an eyewitness, Captain Nikolai Mikhalchenko:
- When the first tremors stopped, my wife and I returned to the house. We lived 30-40 meters from the coast in the Okeansky village on Paramushir. After a while, it began to shake again, we began to dress and then I heard shouts: “Water!”. I opened the door and I was literally carried away by a powerful stream. The house folded like a piece of cardboard, but I managed to catch on to its roof before it was torn off ... It's dark, nothing is visible. I flew off with the roof, felt a hard surface under my feet, came to my senses and ran to the hill in the direction of the fish processing plant. Later I noticed that the roof of my house was thrown back from the shore by about half a kilometer. We stayed on the hill for two or three days, until ships came from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and began to take those who survived to Severo-Kurilsk. In Okeanskoye, everyone who lived near the coast died.
QUIET MORNING
The second wave was much higher and more destructive. The houses lost electricity - the previous onslaught did not touch the power plant ... After the second blow, the entire lower part of the regional center was washed away. Actually, almost the entire settlement was located there.
From the memoirs of Lev Dombrovsky:
- The second wave came 40 minutes after the first. Glancing through the binoculars, I couldn’t believe my eyes: the city simply didn’t become ... And the morning was quiet and sunny. The ocean was calm. And in the sea near the shore one could see empty containers, barrels for fuel, we even made out a wooden house. It was simply washed away….
We were all on edge ... Dead bodies were scattered all over the ground ... One man was hanging from a crane mast. One house made of slabs was undamaged. But only its base survived, and the roof, doors and windows were torn out.
Snow fell a few days after the tragedy. As it turned out later, only two objects made of concrete remained completely intact from the buildings: the gates of the stadium and the monument to the Hero of the Soviet Union Stepan Savushkin.
Cases of looting were recorded, they were suppressed only with the help of the military. The victims were taken to Vladivostok, Kamchatka and Sakhalin. The shock was severe, but after a while the North Kuril residents began to return to their islands.
SALVATION OF THE DROWNERS
The archives have preserved truly amazing stories of the salvation of people thrown into the open sea. V. Kaistrenko personally met with an eyewitness to one of them, the captain of a fishing vessel Aleksey Mezis.
According to the captain's recollections, his crew lifted a woman aboard, who for three days drifted in the sea on the roof of a demolished house. She literally clung to her with a death grip. The tidal current carried it several times along the strait from the Sea of Okhotsk to the ocean and back. Even after several days, the northern Kuril woman did not immediately understand what had happened to her - such was the blow to her psyche ... But it was November ...
Fate also favored Mezis himself - that day his ship was in Severo-Kurilsk, and he went to see his family in Kozyrevsk, to the neighboring Shumsha, which was separated from Severo-Kurilsk by 3 miles across the strait. Mezis saw the whole picture of the arrival of the tsunami from the other side and managed to climb the hills. And in Kozyrevsk, the wave crushed the local fish factory like a bulldozer.
No less amazing is the story of the boy - from Severo-Kurilsk he was carried by a wave at the gate. On them he was brought to the village of Babushkino on the island of Shumshu. The shock was strong, the child did not understand what had happened and where he was. It did not thaw immediately. And he was not left an orphan - his parents found him.
UNTIL THE WAVE RUNS ...
The 1952 tsunami showed how unprepared the local authorities and the local population were to live next to such a formidable phenomenon as the tsunami. No one thought that the buildings in the coastal strip were subject to the impact of a giant wave. They were built according to the principle of economic feasibility, regardless of safety. Ordinary residents did not pay much attention to the fact that near the Japanese houses the former owners built stairs to the hills - in order to climb up at the first danger and protect themselves from the crushing killer wave. Yes, no one explained to them how to behave during such disasters. The rescue of the drowning turned out to be, in fact, the work of the drowning themselves.
However, after the 1952 tsunami in the USSR, the Tsunami Warning System began to be created, and 1955 is considered its year of birth.
In 1964, a decision was made by the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR to ban construction in tsunami hazardous zones. But in addition to this decision, no regulatory framework was created. Therefore, new objects continued to appear in areas within the reach of the tsunami. This once again played a cruel joke with the Northern Kuriles in 1960.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the observation system began to collapse, and the tsunami warning system remained technically obsolete. It began to revive at the beginning of this century, and this cannot but rejoice, emphasizes V. Kaistrenko. Three research institutes of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialists from the Sakhalin Hydrometeorological Service, the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Nizhny Novgorod Technical University are now involved in tsunami research. In the regional department of construction, two years ago, work began on the regulatory framework for design and construction in tsunami hazardous zones. And the tragedy of 1952 should be a reminder for all of us - we are powerless in front of the riot of nature, but it is in our power to protect ourselves from it in order to prevent the death of people and reduce destruction to a minimum.
A tsunami comparable to the tsunami of 1952 occurred in December 2004 off the coast of Indonesia, when more than two hundred thousand of its inhabitants, many vacationers in Thailand's resorts, tens and hundreds of residents of settlements on the coast of other countries of the Indian Ocean zone died. An unusual experience about. Simelu, located closest to the source of this tsunami, with more than 76 thousand people. 7 people died there, because people knew how to live next to the tsunami and escape from the wave. And on other coasts - terrible losses.
In the fall of 1952, the eastern coast of Kamchatka, the islands of Paramushir and Shumshu were on the first line of the disaster. The North Kuril tsunami of 1952 became one of the five largest in the entire history of the twentieth century.
Tsunami in Kamchatka, 1952
Tsunami in Kamchatka, 1952
The city of Severo-Kurilsk was destroyed. The Kuril and Kamchatka villages of Utesny, Levashovo, Rifovy, Kamenisty, Pribrezhny, Galkino, Okeansky, Podgorny, Major Van, Shelekhovo, Savushkino, Kozyrevsky, Babushkino, Baikovo were swept away ...
In the fall of 1952, the country lived an ordinary life. The Soviet press, Pravda and Izvestia, did not get a single line: neither about the tsunami in the Kuril Islands, nor about the thousands of people who died.
A picture of what happened can be restored from the recollections of eyewitnesses, rare photographs.
Tsunami in Kamchatka, 1952
Writer Arkady Strugatsky, who served as a military translator in the Kuril Islands in those years, took part in eliminating the consequences of the tsunami. I wrote to my brother in Leningrad:
“… I was on the island of Syumushu (or Shumshu - look at the southern tip of Kamchatka). What I saw, did and experienced there - I cannot write yet. I will only say that I have been in the area where the disaster, which I wrote to you about, made itself felt especially strongly.
Tsunami in Kamchatka, 1952
The black island of Shumushu, the island of the wind of Shumushu, the ocean hits the rocks-walls of Shumushu with a wave. The one who was on Shumushu, was that night on Shumushu, remembers how the ocean went to attack Shumushu; As on the piers of Shumushu, and on the pillboxes of Shumushu, and on the roofs of Shumushu, the ocean collapsed with a roar; As in the hollows of Shumushu, and in the trenches of Shumushu - in the bare hills of Shumushu, the ocean raged. And in the morning, Shyumushu, to the walls-rocks Shyumushu many corpses, Shumushu, brought the Pacific Ocean. Shumushu Black Island, Shumushu Island of Fear. Who lives on Shumushu, he looks at the ocean.
I wove these verses under the impression of what I saw and heard. I don't know how from the literary point of view, but from the point of view of facts - everything is correct ... "
War!
In those years, the work of registering residents in Severo-Kurilsk was not really established. Seasonal workers, classified military units, whose composition was not disclosed. According to the official report, in 1952 about 6,000 people lived in Severo-Kurilsk.
Konstantin Ponedelnikov, an 82-year-old resident of South Sakhalin, went with his comrades to the Kuril Islands in 1951 to earn extra money. They built houses, plastered walls, helped to install reinforced concrete salting vats at the fish processing plant. In those years, there were many newcomers in the Far East: they arrived by recruitment, fulfilled the deadline established by the contract.
Tsunami in Kamchatka, 1952
By Konstantin Ponedelnikov:
- Everything happened on the night of November 4-5. I was still single, well, a young business, I came from the street late, at two or three o'clock. Then he lived in an apartment, rented a room from a family countryman, also from Kuibyshev. Just went to bed - what is it? The house shook. The owner shouts: get up quickly, get dressed - and out into the street. He had lived there for several years already, he knew what was what.
Konstantin ran out of the house and lit a cigarette. The ground trembled perceptibly underfoot. And suddenly from the side of the coast there was shooting, shouts, noise. In the light of the ship's searchlights, people were running from the bay. "War!" they shouted. So, at least, it seemed to the guy at the beginning. Later I realized: a wave! Water!!! Self-propelled guns went from the sea in the direction of the hills, where the border unit stood. And together with everyone else, Konstantin ran after him, upstairs.
From the report of the senior lieutenant of the state security P. Deryabin:
“… We did not have time to reach the regional department when we heard a loud noise, then a crackling sound from the side of the sea. Looking back, we saw a large water wall advancing from the sea to the island ... I gave the order to open fire from my personal weapons and shout: "There is water!", At the same time retreating to the hills. Hearing noise and screams, people began to run out of the apartments in what they were dressed (most in underwear, barefoot) and run into the hills. "
Konstantin Ponedelnikov:
- Our way to the hills lay through a ditch three meters wide, where wooden bridges were laid for the passage. Beside me, panting, a woman ran with a five-year-old boy. I grabbed the child in an armful - and with him jumped over the ditch, from where only the strength came. And the mother had already moved over the boards.
On the dais were army dugouts, where the exercises were held. It was there that people settled down to keep warm - it was November. These dugouts became their refuge for the next few days.
On the site of the former Severo-Kurilsk. June 1953
Three waves
After the first wave left, many went downstairs to find the missing relatives, to release the cattle from the barns. People did not know: a tsunami has a long wavelength, and sometimes tens of minutes pass between the first and second.
From the report of P. Deryabin:
“... Approximately 15–20 minutes after the departure of the first wave, a wave of water of even greater force and magnitude rushed out again than the first. People, thinking that everything was over (many, heartbroken by the loss of their loved ones, children and property), descended from the hills and began to settle in the surviving houses in order to warm themselves and dress themselves. Water, not meeting any resistance on its way ... rushed to the land, completely destroying the remaining houses and buildings. This wave destroyed the entire city and killed most of the population. "
And almost immediately, the third wave carried into the sea almost everything that it could take with it. The strait separating the islands of Paramushir and Shumshu was filled with floating houses, roofs and debris.
The tsunami, which was later named after the destroyed city - "the tsunami in Severo-Kurilsk" - was caused by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean, 130 km off the coast of Kamchatka. An hour after a powerful (with a magnitude of about 9) earthquake, the first tsunami wave reached Severo-Kurilsk. The height of the second, the most terrible, wave reached 18 meters. According to official figures, 2,336 people died in Severo-Kurilsk alone.
Konstantin Ponedelnikov did not see the waves themselves. First, he delivered refugees to the hill, then with several volunteers they went downstairs and for long hours rescued people, pulling them out of the water, taking them off the roofs. The real scale of the tragedy became clear later.
- I went down to the city ... There we had a watchmaker, a good guy, legless. I look: his stroller. And he himself lies next to him, dead. The soldiers put the corpses on a chaise and take them to the hills, there either to the mass grave, or how else they buried - God knows. And along the coast there were barracks, a sapper military unit. One foreman escaped, he was at home, and the whole company perished. Covered them with a wave. The bullpen was standing, and there were probably people there. Maternity hospital, hospital ... All died.
From a letter from Arkady Strugatsky to his brother:
“The buildings were destroyed, the entire shore was littered with logs, pieces of plywood, pieces of hedges, gates and doors. On the pier there were two old naval artillery towers, they were installed by the Japanese almost at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The tsunami threw them about a hundred meters away. When dawn broke, those who had escaped descended from the mountains - men and women in underwear, trembling with cold and terror. Most of the inhabitants either sunk or lay on the shore, interspersed with logs and debris. "
The evacuation of the population was carried out promptly. After Stalin's short call to the Sakhalin Regional Committee, all nearby planes and watercraft were sent to the disaster area.
Konstantin, among about three hundred victims, ended up on the Amderma steamer, which was completely choked with fish. For people, they unloaded half of the coal hold, threw a tarp.
Through Korsakov they were brought to Primorye, where they lived for some time in very difficult conditions. But then the “upstairs” decided that the recruitment contracts needed to be worked out, and they sent everyone back to Sakhalin. There was no question of any material compensation, it is good if it was possible at least to confirm the length of service. Konstantin was lucky: his work supervisor survived and restored work books and passports ...
Fish place
Many of the destroyed villages were never rebuilt. The population of the islands has declined dramatically. The port city of Severo-Kurilsk was rebuilt in a new place, higher. Without carrying out the same volcanological examination, so that as a result the city found itself in an even more dangerous place - on the way of mud flows of the Ebeko volcano, one of the most active in the Kuril Islands.
The life of the port Severo-Kurilsk has always been associated with fish. The work was profitable, people came, lived, left - there was some kind of movement. In the 1970s and 1980s, only loafers at sea did not earn 1,500 rubles a month (an order of magnitude more than in a similar job on the mainland). In the 1990s, crab was caught and taken to Japan. But in the late 2000s, the Federal Agency for Fishery had to almost completely ban the Kamchatka crab fishing. In order not to disappear at all.
Today, the population has shrunk by three times since the late 1950s. Today, about 2,500 people live in Severo-Kurilsk - or, as the locals say, Sevkur. Of these, 500 are under the age of 18. In the maternity ward of the hospital, 30-40 citizens of the country are born annually, with “Severo-Kurilsk” in the “place of birth” column.
The fish processing factory provides the country with stocks of navaga, flounder and pollock. About half of the workers are local. The rest are newcomers ("verbota", recruited). They earn about 25 thousand a month.
It is not customary to sell fish to fellow countrymen. There is a whole sea of it, and if you want cod or, say, halibut, you need to come to the port in the evening, where the fishing steamers are unloading, and just ask: "Hey, brother, wrap up the fish."
Tourists in Paramushir are still only dreamed of. Visitors are accommodated in the "Fisherman's House" - a place that is only partially heated. True, recently a thermal power plant was modernized in Sevkur, a new berth was built in the port.
One problem is the inaccessibility of Paramushir. There are more than a thousand kilometers to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and three hundred kilometers to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The helicopter flies once a week, provided that the weather will be in Petrika, in Severo-Kurilsk, and on Cape Lopatka, where Kamchatka ends. It's good if you wait a couple of days. Or maybe three weeks ...
In Severo-Kurilsk, the expression "live like on a volcano" can be used without quotation marks. There are 23 volcanoes on Paramushir Island, five of them are active. Ebeko, located seven kilometers from the city, comes to life from time to time and releases volcanic gases.
In calm weather and with a westerly wind, they reach Severo-Kurilsk - it is impossible not to feel the smell of hydrogen sulfide and chlorine. Usually, in such cases, the Sakhalin Hydrometeorological Center sends a storm warning about air pollution: toxic gases are easy to poison. Eruptions in Paramushir in 1859 and 1934 caused massive poisoning of people and death of domestic animals. Therefore, volcanologists in such cases urge residents of the city to use masks for breathing protection and filters for water purification.
The site for the construction of Severo-Kurilsk was chosen without conducting a volcanological examination. Then, in the 1950s, the main thing was to build a city not lower than 30 meters above sea level. After the tragedy of 1952, the water seemed more terrible than fire.
In the fall of 1952, the country lived an ordinary life. The Soviet press, Pravda and Izvestia, did not get a single line: neither about the tsunami in the Kuril Islands, nor about the thousands of people who died. The picture of what happened can be restored only from the recollections of eyewitnesses, and rare photographs.
Classified tsunami
The tsunami wave after the earthquake in Japan reached the Kuril Islands. Low, one and a half meters. And in the fall of 1952, the eastern coast of Kamchatka, the islands of Paramushir and Shumshu were on the first line of the disaster. The North Kuril tsunami of 1952 became one of the five largest in the entire history of the twentieth century.
The city of Severo-Kurilsk was destroyed. The Kuril and Kamchatka villages of Utesny, Levashovo, Rifovy, Kamenisty, Pribrezhny, Galkino, Okeansky, Podgorny, Major Van, Shelekhovo, Savushkino, Kozyrevsky, Babushkino, Baikovo were swept away ...
Writer Arkady Strugatsky, who served as a military translator in the Kuril Islands in those years, took part in eliminating the consequences of the tsunami. From a letter to his brother in Leningrad:
"... I was on the island of Syumushu (or Shumshu - look at the southern tip of Kamchatka). What I saw, did and experienced there - I can not write yet. I will only say that I visited the area where the disaster I wrote to you about , made itself felt especially strongly.
The black island of Shumushu, the island of the wind of Shumushu, the ocean hits the rocks-walls of Shumushu with a wave.
The one who was on Shumushu, was that night on Shumushu, remembers how the ocean went to attack Shumushu;
As on the piers of Shumushu, and on the pillboxes of Shumushu, and on the roofs of Shumushu, the ocean collapsed with a roar;
As in the hollows of Shumushu, and in the trenches of Shumushu - in the bare hills of Shumushu, the ocean raged.
And the next morning, Shyumushu, to the walls-rocks Shyumushu many corpses, Shumushu, brought the Pacific Ocean.
Shumushu Black Island, Shumushu Island of Fear. Who lives on Shumushu, he looks at the ocean.
I wove these verses under the impression of what I saw and heard. I don't know how from a literary point of view, but from the point of view of facts - everything is correct ... "
In those years, the work of registering residents in Severo-Kurilsk was not really established. Seasonal workers, classified military units, whose composition was not disclosed. According to the official report, in 1952 about six thousand people lived in Severo-Kurilsk.
82-year-old South Sakhalin resident Konstantin Ponedelnikov in 1951 went with his comrades to the Kuril Islands, to earn extra money. They built houses, plastered the walls, helped to install reinforced concrete salting vats at the fish processing plant. In those years, there were many newcomers in the Far East: they arrived by recruitment, fulfilled the deadline established by the contract.
Everything happened on the night of November 4-5. I was still single, well, a young business, I came from the street late, at two or three o'clock. Then he lived in an apartment, rented a room from a family countryman, also from Kuibyshev. Just went to bed - what is it? The house shook. The owner shouts: get up quickly, get dressed - and out into the street. He had lived there for several years already, he knew what was what, - says Konstantin Ponedelnikov.
Konstantin ran out of the house and lit a cigarette. The ground trembled perceptibly underfoot. And suddenly from the side of the coast there was shooting, shouts, noise. In the light of the ship's searchlights, people were running from the bay. "War!" they shouted. So, at least, it seemed to the guy at the beginning. Later I realized: a wave! Water!!! Self-propelled guns went from the sea in the direction of the hills, where the border unit stood. And together with everyone else, Konstantin ran after him, upstairs.
From the report of the senior lieutenant of the state security P. Deryabin:
"... We did not have time to reach the regional department, when we heard a great noise, then a crackling from the sea. Looking back, we saw a large water shaft advancing from the sea to the island ... I gave the order to open fire from my personal weapons and shout : "There is water!", While retreating to the hills. Hearing noise and shouts, people began to run out of the apartments in what they were dressed (most in underwear, barefoot) and run into the hills. "
- Our way to the hills lay through a ditch three meters wide, where wooden bridges were laid for the passage. Beside me, panting, a woman ran with a five-year-old boy. I grabbed the child in an armful - and with him jumped over the ditch, from where only the strength came. And the mother has already moved over the boards, - said Konstantin Ponedelnikov.
On the dais were army dugouts, where the exercises were held. It was there that people settled down to keep warm - it was November. These dugouts became their refuge for the next few days.
Three waves
After the first wave left, many went downstairs to find the missing relatives, to release the cattle from the barns. People did not know: a tsunami has a long wavelength, and sometimes tens of minutes pass between the first and second.
From the report of P. Deryabin:
"... Approximately 15–20 minutes after the departure of the first wave, a wave of water of even greater strength and magnitude than the first rushed again. People, thinking that everything was over (many, heartbroken by the loss of their loved ones, children and property), descended from the hills and began to settle in the surviving houses to warm up and clothe themselves. Water, meeting no resistance on its way ... poured onto the land, completely destroying the remaining houses and buildings. This wave destroyed the entire city and killed most of the population. "
And almost immediately, the third wave carried into the sea almost everything that it could take with it. The strait separating the islands of Paramushir and Shumshu was filled with floating houses, roofs and debris.
The tsunami, which was later named after the destroyed city - "the tsunami in Severo-Kurilsk" - was caused by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean, 130 km off the coast of Kamchatka. An hour after a powerful (with a magnitude of about 9) earthquake, the first tsunami wave reached Severo-Kurilsk. The height of the second, the most terrible, wave reached 18 meters. According to official figures, 2,336 people died in Severo-Kurilsk alone.
Konstantin Ponedelnikov did not see the waves themselves. First, he delivered refugees to the hill, then with several volunteers they went downstairs and for long hours rescued people, pulling them out of the water, taking them off the roofs. The real scale of the tragedy became clear later.
- I went down to the city ... There we had a watchmaker, a good guy, legless. I look: his stroller. And he himself lies next to him, dead. The soldiers put the corpses on a chaise and take them to the hills, there either to the mass grave, or how else they buried - God knows. And along the coast there were barracks, a sapper military unit. One foreman escaped, he was at home, and the whole company perished. Covered them with a wave. The bullpen was standing, and there were probably people there. Maternity hospital, hospital ... All died, - recalls Konstantin.
From a letter from Arkady Strugatsky to his brother:
"The buildings were destroyed, the entire coast was littered with logs, pieces of plywood, pieces of hedges, gates and doors. On the pier there were two old naval artillery towers, they were erected by the Japanese almost at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The tsunami threw them about a hundred meters away. dawn, those who managed to escape came down from the mountains - men and women in underwear, trembling with cold and horror. Most of the inhabitants either sank or lay on the shore interspersed with logs and debris. "
The evacuation of the population was carried out promptly. After Stalin's short call to the Sakhalin Regional Committee, all nearby planes and watercraft were sent to the disaster area. Konstantin, among about three hundred victims, ended up on the Amderma steamer, which was completely choked with fish. For people, they unloaded half of the coal hold, threw a tarp.
Through Korsakov they were brought to Primorye, where they lived for some time in very difficult conditions. But then the "top" decided that the recruitment contracts needed to be worked out, and sent everyone back to Sakhalin. There was no question of any material compensation, it is good if it was possible at least to confirm the length of service. Konstantin was lucky: his work supervisor survived and restored work books and passports ...
This is the last of the five strongest earthquakes on Earth, and there hasn't been an article about it yet. Why wasn't there? Because it is the earliest? Not at all. Because it's not the most interesting? No, since it would be very funny for a person who was born in the USSR and lived in a seismically dangerous area not to know about him and not be interested in what is happening in his practically native country.
And here's why: little is known about the earthquakes that occurred on the territory of the USSR, except from foreign sources. They knew that there were earthquakes, but the details were usually not covered.
Let's start:
November 4, 1952 at 16:52 local time, a strong earthquake occurred off the eastern coast of Kamchatka. The earthquake was followed by a massive tsunami that resulted in economic losses of about $ 1 million in 1952 prices. The magnitude of the earthquake was originally estimated at 8.2, but in 1977 Hiro Kanamori recounted it, and as a result, the magnitude of the earthquake was 9.0. The depth of the hypocenter was about 30 kilometers.
The tsunami caused colossal damage to the Hawaiian Islands. Midway Atoll was flooded, the water level rose by 1 meter. In Hawaii, waves destroyed boats, telephone lines, piers were destroyed, beaches were washed away, lawns were flooded. In Honolulu, the Harbor barge was dropped onto another cargo ship. In Hilo, a tsunami destroyed a small bridge. At Cape Cayenne on the island of Oahu, wave heights of up to 9.1 meters are noted. The north coast of Oahu has seen most of the destruction in Hawaii. In Hilo, a boathouse was demolished at a cost of about 13 thousand dollars. One span of a bridge in the Cocos Islands was destroyed. In Hilo alone, the damage is estimated at $ 400,000. However, in other coastal cities in Hawaii, the rise in water was barely noticeable.
Alaska also experienced a strong tsunami. In Masskroo Bay, the wave had a height of 2.7 meters and a period of about 17 minutes. Low-lying areas were flooded. In Adak, the wave height was less - about 1 meter - and only the shores in the harbor area were flooded. Schools were closed in Dutch Harbor and people were evacuated on a hill, but the wave did not cause damage, since its height was small, only half a meter. Elsewhere, the tsunami wave heights were even less - within 30 centimeters.
In California, the maximum tsunami waves were observed in Avila - 1.4 meters high, in Crescent - 1 meter, and in other cities and towns they howled less than a meter and did not lead to noticeable damage.
In New Zealand, the waves reached a height of 1m. In Japan, there was also a tsunami, but there is no information about the damage from it and the death of people. Small damage from waves was recorded even in Peru and Chile, at a distance of more than 9000 kilometers from the site of the earthquake.
In Kamchatka, the wave heights ranged from 0 to 5 meters, but in some places the tsunamis were higher (from the Kronotsky Peninsula to Cape Shipursky - from 4 to 13 meters). The highest wave was observed in Olga Bay and was 13 meters and there it caused significant damage. The time it took for the waves to reach Cape Olga was 42 minutes after the earthquake. From Cape Shipursky to Cape Povorotny, the height of tsunami waves ranged from 1 to 10 meters and caused significant human and economic losses. In Avacha Bay, the tsunami was only about 1.2 meters high and arrived there half an hour after the earthquake. From Cape Povorotny to Cape Lopatka, the wave height was from 5 to 15 meters. In Khodutka Bay, the boat was thrown 500 meters from the coastline. On the western coast of Kamchatka, the maximum tsunami height was recorded in Ozernoye and was 5 meters. On Alayd Island in the ridge of the Kuril Islands, the wave height was 1.5 meters, on Shumshu Island - from 7 to 9 meters, on Paramushir - from 4 to 18.4 meters. In Severo-Kurilsk, the main city of the Kuril Islands, located on Paramushir, the wave height was very high - about 15 meters. The tsunami caused great destruction in the city and resulted in significant loss of life. On the Onekotan Island, the wave height was 9 meters, on the Shiashkoton Island - 8 meters, on the Iturup Island - 2.5 meters. Waves up to 2 meters high were recorded on the Commander Islands and Okhotsk. On Sakhalin, in the city of Korsakov, the wave height was about 1 meter.
According to recent estimates, the total number of victims was about four thousand people, most of whom were in the Kuril Islands.
Many destroyed villages and border outposts were never rebuilt. The population of the islands has declined dramatically. Severo-Kurilsk was rebuilt, moved it away from the ocean, as far as the relief allowed. As a result, he found himself in an even more dangerous place - on the ejection cone of mud flows of the Ebeko volcano, one of the most active in the Kuril Islands. The population of the city today is about 3 thousand people. The catastrophe initiated the creation of a tsunami warning service in the USSR, which is now in a sad state due to beggarly funding.
HISTORY The three earthquakes that occurred off the coast of Kamchatka in 1737, 1923 and 1952 were caused by the collision of the Pacific and Okhotsk plates. Northern Kamchatka is located in the western part of the Bering fault between the Pacific and North American plates. There are many earthquakes in the area, the last of which was recorded in 1997.
The earthquake of 1737 had a magnitude of slightly less than 9.0 according to the last calculation, the source was at a depth of 40 kilometers. The earthquake on February 4, 1923 had a magnitude of 8.3-8.5 and led to a tsunami that caused significant damage in Kamchatka and human casualties. The tsunami was about 6 meters high when it reached the Hawaiian Islands, causing the death of at least one person. In addition, strong earthquakes occurred in Kamchatka on April 15, 1791 (magnitude about 7), 1807, 1809, 1810, 1821, 1827 (magnitude 6-7), May 8, 1841 (magnitude about 7), in 1851, 1902, 1904, 1911, April 14, 1923, autumn 1931, September 1936.
From the end of the 19th century to the end of the 70s of the 20th century, 56 earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 occurred in Kamchatka, nine with a magnitude of more than 8, and two with a magnitude of more than 8.5. Since 1969, five earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7.5 have been recorded on the peninsula (November 22, 1969 - 7.7, December 15, 1971 - 7.8, February 28, 1973 - 7.5, December 12, 1984 - 7, 5, 5 December 1997 - 7.9).
List of earthquakes for 1952 (magnitude above 7
)1.Kepulauan Barat Daya, Indonesia, February 14, magnitude 7.0
2. Hokkaido Island, Japan, March 4, magnitude 8.13.
4. Philippines region, March 19, magnitude 7.3
5. Central California, USA, July 21, magnitude 7.3
6.Tibet, China, August 17, magnitude 7.4
7. Kamchatka, USSR, November 4, magnitude 8.9
8.Solomon Islands, December 6, magnitude 7.0
