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Much of the literature references this as the biggest ever tsunami at 500+ meters, but an account from one of the survivors who was there on his fishing boat (with his 7-year-old son!) said this specific thing:

"The wave definitely started in Gilbert Inlet, just before the end of the quake. It was not a wave at first. It was like an explosion, or a glacier sluff. The wave came out of the lower part, and looked like the smallest part of the whole thing. The wave did not go up 1,800 feet, the water splashed there."

Still insane, but it was the immediate splash that scoured away trees and soil cover up to 527 meters up the mountain face, not a proper tsunami.

Both the fisherman and his son survived btw.


Yeah I personally agree it’s not quite the same as if the pacific ocean was coming up 527 meters before hitting the shore :)
I'd absolutely love to see something like this live, in the flesh, obviously from far enough to survive it. It would be one of those spectacles for completely flabbergasting one's sense of importance in a self-remaking world.

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