In the aftermath of the January 12, magnitude-7 earthquake that struck the nation of Haiti last month, two deadly tsunamis formed in the waters off the island. These waves naturally traveled until they met land, and formed walls of water up to three meters in height. The announcement was made on February 24 in Portland, Oregon, by researchers who traveled to the scene of the devastation in early February. In charge of the investigation was expert Hermann Fritz, who is a coastal engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), in Savannah. He spent about a week in Haiti, collecting testimonies from fishermen and other residents of coastal communities, Nature News reports.

According to computer models, the waves that this earthquake produced should have been very small, and break on various beaches without harming anyone. However, these investigations were only conducted for the southern parts of the island. At these locations, the waves did not exceed 20 centimeters in size, which is almost imperceptible. Fritz says that these harmless water motions extended far out into the ocean, but without any real consequences. Still, the single site he and his group surveyed appeared to have experienced at least two, 3-meter-tall waves, as well as a host of smaller, 1-meter-tall ones. It was additionally discovered that several of these smaller waves extended as far as the shores of the Dominican Republic.

The expert visited the town of Jacmel, which is also located on the southern coast of Haiti, and found here widespread signs of devastation. For instance, in a barracks belonging to the United Nations, he discovered that water levels reached at least a meter in height as they flooded the place. Fortunately, the soldiers that were inside had left immediately after the earthquake. The military contingent was from Sri Lanka, a country that has suffered considerably at the hands of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. “They knew all about tsunamis,” Fritz said of the soldiers.

He also found signs of devastation on the western coasts of the island, where some of the waves rushed about 70 meters inland. In one instance, such a wave killed an elderly man and his two grandchildren, who had stopped to watch the water. “When an earthquake generates a tsunami, it's because the sea floor went up and down. An earthquake that is pure strike-slip doesn't do that,” added Northwestern University geophysicist Seth Stein. He says that tsunamis shouldn't have occurred in Hawaii, as the tremor was a strike-slip in the purest sense.