U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1187 Online Version 1.0

Surviving a Tsunami—Lessons from Chile, Hawaii, and Japan

This 18-page booklet was originally published in paper by the U.S. Geological Survey and is now available here as a PDF document. It contains lessons on how to survive a tsunami based on accounts from people who survived the tsunami generated by the largest earthquake ever measured—the magnitude 9.5 earthquake in Chile on May 22, 1960. It also contains an excellent description of what tsunamis are.

This project was sponsored by The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. The booklet was prepared in cooperation with Universidad Austral de Chile, the University of Tokyo, the University of Washington, the Geological Survey of Japan, and the Pacific Tsunami Museum.

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