RESUMEN
On October 30th, 2020, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake offshore off the northern coast of Samos, Greece, generated a tsunami that impacted the nearshore Greek islands and the Aegean coastline of Turkey. Here, we describe detailed results from several post-event field surveys, and report first wave arrival timing and polarity information as well as tsunami height/runup measurements, from five islands. In Chios, wave runup reached 1.38 m, in Samos ~ 3 m, in Fourni 1.57 m, in Thimena 1.46 m, and in Ikaria 1.18 m. This event marks two milestones. One, the General Secretariat for Civil Protection of Greece, disseminated a message through Greece's 1-1-2 Emergency Communications Service to all cell phones in the eastern Aegean geographical region, warning recipients to stay away from coastal areas. According to eyewitnesses, the message was received ~ 3-5 min prior to the second and largest flood in Vathi, as the first flood had not sufficiently alarmed the local authorities to evacuate residents. Two, we were able to infer complete tsunami hydrographs from measurements for the first two floods in Vathi, which suggests that the water level rose to about one meter overland flow depth in one minute.
RESUMEN
Tsunami-induced currents present an obvious hazard to maritime activities and ports in particular. The historical record is replete with accounts from ship captains and harbour masters describing their fateful encounters with currents and surges caused by these destructive waves. Despite the well-known hazard, only since the trans-oceanic tsunamis of the early twenty-first century (2004, 2010 and 2011) have coastal and port engineering practitioners begun to develop port-specific warning and response products that accurately assess the effects of tsunami-induced currents in addition to overland flooding and inundation. The hazard from strong currents induced by far-field tsunami remains an underappreciated risk in the port and maritime community. In this paper, we will discuss the history of tsunami current observations in ports, look into the current state of the art in port tsunami hazard assessment and discuss future research trends.