Massive Alaska megatsunami was second largest ever recorded
Researchers used satellite and seismic data to reconstruct a landslide-generated wave that climbed 1,578 feet, the second-highest tsunami ever recorded.
- On Wednesday, researchers led by University of Calgary geomorphologist Daniel Shugar published a study in the journal Science reconstructing a mega-tsunami triggered by a massive landslide into Alaska's Tracy Arm Fjord on August 10, 2025.
- Rapid warming caused the South Sawyer Glacier to retreat about 500 metres, destabilizing the mountainside and unbuttressing 370 million metric tons of rock that collapsed into the fjord.
- The resulting wave reached about 481 metres, the second-highest run-up ever recorded, as debris fell 1,000 vertical metres into the deep, narrow fjord.
- Cruise lines have suspended routes into the fjord this year, while Shugar described the event as a "good wake up call" given the fortunate absence of vessels near the slide.
- Experts warn that continued glacier retreat and expanding tourism infrastructure increase the likelihood of future disasters, necessitating better slope monitoring and proactive policymaking to mitigate risks.
123 Articles
123 Articles
The tsunami hit Alaska last summer. A landslide triggered a wave that was one and a half times as high as the Eiffel Tower.
World’s second-highest tsunami goes unnoticed
The second-highest tsunami ever recorded struck Alaska in August last year, but almost no one noticed. A landslide from a glacier dropped over a hundred million tons of rock into Tracy Arm fjord, pushing a 1,580-foot wave up the narrow waterway; it is a tourist hotspot, but the 5am strike time meant no cruise ships were nearby. Traditional tsunami warnings would be useless, since the wave followed the landslide by seconds rather than hours, but …
Alaska's near‑record landslide tsunami sent a wave 1,580 feet up the fjord walls
On the evening of Aug. 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer finished taking selfies and videos of the South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from the adjacent mountain unexpectedly collapsed into the fjord, initiating the second-highest tsunami in recorded history.
A 1,500-foot wave: The landslide-triggered tsunami scientists warn could happen again
On Aug. 10 of last year, a massive wave surged up the walls of Tracy Arm Fjord in southeast Alaska, climbing more than 1,578 feet up a cliff face before the tsunami rushed back down the inlet. According to a report from The New York Times, the initial wave resulted from a massive landslide. Recent research investigating the event shows how difficult it is to predict such catastrophic geological slides. Geologist Bretwood Higman and an internati…
The tsunami, documented by Science magazine, hit Alaska last summer. A landslide caused a wave high once and a half the Eiffel Tower
A group of American scientists have revealed that a huge wave, in fact a megatsunami that was generated when an Alaskan mountain collapsed in the sea, is the second highest recorded in history.It happened last summer, when a giant wave swept away a remote fjord in southeast Alaska, razing everything it found in its wake.At that time the event went virtually unnoticed, but a new scientific analysis has now shown that it was caused by a massive la…
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